The urgency for engaging customers across social channels is growing. Brands are investing heavily in social marketing, with $16 billion predicted by Forrester to be spent by US marketers alone in 2016.

With so much at stake, we wanted to find out if brands are keeping pace with their customers' expectations. Who's doing it best? What areas are most challenging? Where should brands be focusing their attention?

We commissioned independent research firm ComBlu to investigate. Combining hard numbers with human analysis, the State of Social looks at eight industries and 85 Fortune 1000 companies to determine how effective brands are across their social ecosystems.

The results are in. What is worrying is this:

• 95% of brands' social strategies are stuck in antiquated 'broadcast' mode
• Only 6% of brands are using storytelling effectively, with the remainder relying on 'random' one-off posts
• Less than 2% of brands consistently respond to their followers' posts across social channels
• Less than 40% of brands ever ask questions of their followers or engage with follower content

Where do you stack up against your competitors and industry?

Download an infographic highlighting the study findings here: