Social media activity helps to increase profits, according to a new study of the world’s top 100 brands. In the last year, companies that spent considerable amounts of time on twittering, blogging and social networking projects saw revenues grow by an average of 18%, compared to a drop of 6% among the least engaged.

“The study goes a long way towards validating the importance of social media for business,” said Ben Elowitz, CEO of Wetpaint, the company behind the research. “Companies should feel much more comfortable investing in social media – the correlation to results is so clear.”

Starbucks was the most active in terms of social media, followed by Dell and eBay. Seven of the top ten were technology or internet brands. While at the bottom of the table came financial giants such as AIG, Citigroup and Goldman Sachs.