Although 60 percent of the FTSE Global 500 companies have a presence on social platforms, less than a tenth of them are effectively using social media to support their corporate social responsbility, a new report claims.

Supported by the United Nations Office for Partnerships, the report was carried out over eight months by social media and corporate communications company Wolfstar Consultancy. Its key findings include:

North America is the most social continent, followed closely by Europe and Asia.
 The most ‘social’countries are the United States and the United Kingdom.
 Of the 37 sectors that make up the FTSE Global 500, the most social is ‘banks’, followed by ‘oil and gas producers’, ‘pharmaceuticals and biotechnology’and ‘technology, hardware and equipment’.
 Twitter is the most used social network, yet only 56 of the 500 had a presence
 The most popular social functionality was RSS, with 107 of the 500 employing it.

Stuart Bruce, managing director of Wolfstar Consultancy, said: "This in-depth research investigated if FTSE 500 companies were utilising social web tools such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter for CSR, or purely making tokenistic attempts.

"The report highlights those companies that were fully embracing social media to communicate their CSR activity with key stakeholders and assist those looking to improve their outreach."

You can read the full report on Scribd.