Is the craze for social media waning? Is it becoming less of a draw, compared to what it used to be a few years back? Well... financial advisors in the U.S. feel it is, a recent report reveals.

A report from the U.S-based Aite Group, a leading independent research and advisory firm, suggests financial advisors are seeing limited or diminished returns from their use of social media.

The report suggests that only 19 percent of social media users surveyed in 2011 confirmed having benefited from it. That figure is less than half what it was two years ago (36 percent), when the use of social media was seen as a powerful tool for business expansion, said the Aite Group, in a statement on Tuesday.

Ron Shevlin, a senior analyst with Aite and the co-author of the report, said many advisors failed to realize the true potential of social media - as a means of maintaining relationships with their clients. Instead, they used the platform as one to acquire new ones.

It's hard to criticize advisors for aggressively going after new clients, but many seem unwilling to admit that social media may be better suited to communicating with existing clients than to finding and acquiring new ones, he explained.

The percentage of advisors who have used social media to differentiate their practice from competitors' practices declined from 21 percent in 2009 to 9 percent in 2011 and advisors who have seen an increase in revenue or fees from using social media declined from 16 percent in 2009 to 6 percent in 2011.

A graph below shows the findings of the survey:

Photo credit: Aite Group