Universal McCann are back with the latest instalment of their Wave series. The latest version, Wave 5 is called The Socialisation of Brands.

The focus of the study is how brands can look to use social media most effectively, so make sure you read on!

The great people at Contagious have been kind enough to sum up some of the key findings from the research:

- There are 1.5 billion visits to social networks, daily. Of those repsonding to the Wave survey, 61.4% have managed a profile in the past six months, a 10-point rise since Wave.4 in 2009
- Almost half of respondents have accessed brand communities on social networks. The highest motivations for joining were ‘to learn’ (78.6%) and ‘to gain advance news on products’ (76.1%)
- Of those who joined brand communities, 71% were more likely to purchase and 63% recommended others to join