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A report has found that more companies are 'overcoming their fear' of social media and are using services such as Facebook and Twitter increasingly for corporate purposes.

The report, called 2011 Online Customer Engagement Report, was published this week by Econsultancy and cScape and found 51 percent of companies are now using social networks for customer service improvement – an increase from 36 percent from a year ago.

In addition, 58 percent of the 1,000 companies questioned are planning to invest in their presence on social networks this year, and 32 percent use internal social networking for employee communication.

"This is a very exciting development, and as the pioneers in this space have already discovered, it is a great opportunity for the personality and quality of a brand or service to shine through," says Dom Graveson, lead consultant at cScape's customer engagement unit.

"It also reflects a renewed democratisation of the media space: be good to your customers and employees, and be creative in your message, and anyone can become famous. It's put people back at the heart of things, right where they belong."