UK business leaders have failed to grasp the potential impact of social media on their organisation’s brand and their competitiveness, according to a report released today.

The report, from market research firm TNS Media Intelligence/Cymfony suggests that while nearly half of US respondents regard social media as a "revolutionary new opportunity", only 18 per cent of their UK equivalents said they see blogging and social networking as valuable.

The figures are based on interviews with senior executives from global blue chip companies, including Sony, Diageo and HP.

The use of social networking tools is being inhibited by a lack of senior management backing and the scarcity of necessary skills among marketing teams, the report noted.

"We are already seeing the damage done to brands who ignore negative publicity on networking sites – and with hundreds of thousands of new subscribers signing up each day, their influence is only going to increase," said TNS chief strategy officer Jim Nail in a statement.

In related news, a new cross-industry body has been set up in the US to identifying and promoting cross-platform tools and best practices for online safety. The Internet Safety Technical Task Force will initially investigate age-verification technologies that could help children avoid being preyed upon on social networking and other sites.

The 12-month project will be headed up by John Palfrey, executive director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School and members include the Family Online Safety Institute, Google, MySpace and Microsoft.

"The group could end up deciding what age verification technologies are up to the task, but there are also massive public policy and privacy issues here – it could end anonymity online," said Stephen Balkam, chief executive of FOSI and board member of the task force.