Despite over a third of UK organisations believing social media is just as, or more important, than traditional media 90 per cent of organisations don't have a dedicated social media programme.

Findings by PR consultancy Portfolio warns organisations so deeply rooted in the ways of traditional media will find it difficult to embrace the changes necessary to address social media.

However, nearly a third of organisations plan to create a dedicated social networking budget within the next six months.

Jonathan Bawden, senior account manager at Portfolio, says, "The problem is of how organisations are going to fund social media programmes without ‘stealing' budget from other areas, such as traditional PR and advertising campaigns.

Already, we have come across organisations that have appointed social media programme managers without any budget to support them."

The study also found that just 29 per cent of organisations currently make use of external blogs, and only 25 per cent make use of Twitter.

Bawden adds: "Generating the information to make a corporate Twitter account worth following can be surprisingly time-consuming, even if actual tweets are not. However, it is possible to contribute to social media by pointing to research, market reports, case studies and opinion pieces that can add significant value to a debate while taking remarkably little time to execute."

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