IAB research, released yesterday shows that senior marketers believe PR is the first port of call when planning social media campaigns.

In their survey of 80 senior marketers, the IAB found that while social media falls under the marketing umbrella, 33% said that they thought social media to be primarily a PR discipline.

The three other disciplines marketers thought might be involved in social media were customer services (16%), research (12%) and IT (7%).

On the basis of this, the IAB recommends marketers set up social media teams made up of those disciplines they believe should be involved in social media, the make up of which will vary from sector to sector.

“Social media activity has the potential to sit at the very heart of an organisation,” said Amy Kean of the IAB “and as such requires a range of expertise in communications, promotion, insights and customer care in order make the whole package a successful one.”

Other findings included that 88% of marketers think social media important to their business while 74% thought determining ROI the major challenge they faced in deployment.