Cancer Research UK has topped a new index which ranks charities by their use of social media.

Aaron Eccles, social media manager at the charity, said: “We’re proud to have ranked highest in this survey because it shows how hard we’re working to have conversations about our work with as many supporters as possible.”

He added: “Working with our supporters in this way is helping them to really get involved in the core work of the charity – that’s inspiring for us and them.”

The Social Charity 100 Index is compiled by Visceral Business and analyses the activity of 300 UK charities on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and their own online communities.

A snapshot of each charity’s social media activity was taken at the end of May and the end of August, and charities were ranked by the strength of financial income, strength of brand and performance across social networks.

It found that in only 32 of the top 100 was there a correlation between the financial strength and brand strength.

The report concludes that while most charities are using social media it is in its “infancy” and that charities need to work on being more responsive to increase engagement with the charity rather than just broadcasting to their supporters.

Anne McCrossan, partner at Visceral Business, said: “Charities need to embrace social media a little bit more.”

The report also found that different sorts of charities had  different levels of success on social media platforms, for example animal-based charities have a strong Facebook presence and cultural charities were better on Twitter.

Visceral plans to repeat the study in one year to establish any trends.