Social media platforms will take a significant role in brand advertising in the future, the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) has predicted.

Guy Phillipson, chief executive of the IAB, said that advertisers need to follow and audience and find out what they do all day to decide where they are going to advertise, as marketers do with breakfast radio.

"So they will with social media online, there is no advertising on Twitter at the moment but it will probably come.

"That will all add to the brand story and therefore the revenue that will continue to grow online."

Following a successful launch in the US, UK marketers will now be able to use Facebook to measure the effectiveness of their online brand advertising with Nielsen Brandlift, the latest component in Nielsen's portfolio of advertising effectiveness solutions.

Nielsen data shows that Facebook had a 10.2 per cent share of display ad views in the UK in 2009, up from 6.4 per cent in 2008.