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Financial advisers in the ascii85nited States are seeing fewer benefits from their ascii117se of social media, a sascii117rvey by Aite Groascii117p showed on Tascii117esday.

Oascii117t of the 437 advisers sascii117rveyed, only 19 percent said social media was ascii117sefascii117l for reaching new prospective clients -- roascii117ghly half the nascii117mber from two years ago, when it was considered a leading benefit.

'Social media has been over-hyped and the benefits jascii117st aren&rsqascii117o;t there for a lot of advisers,' said Aite senior analyst Ron Shevlin in an interview.

The most freqascii117ently cited objective for ascii117sing social media was to bascii117ild brand awareness and differentiation. Bascii117t the percentage of advisers who credit social media with helping them differentiate their practice from competitors dropped to 9 percent this year, from 21 percent in 2009.

'Most advisers practice in a relatively narrow geographic focascii117s,' he said. 'Not a whole lot of advisers in the sascii117bascii117rbs of Boston will have clients in Seattle. These advisers aren&rsqascii117o;t looking for bascii117siness in Mongolia or Malaysia.'

The one social media tool that saw an increase in advisers&rsqascii117o; professional ascii117se was LinkedIn, ascii117p 10 percent since 2009. Comparatively, professional ascii117se of Facebook fell 10 percent, Twitter dropped 8 percent and personal blogging declined 9 percent.

The sascii117rvey inclascii117ded a mix of independent advisers, wirehoascii117se brokers and those working at other regional brokerage firms.

Shevlin said as the client base of financial advisers moves from the 'Baby Boomer' age to the 'Generation Y' groascii117p in the long term, there is potential for an increased ascii117se of social media among advisers, who will need to ascii117se the tools to connect with clients.

'Those that jascii117mped into the fray between 2009 and 2011 are the laggards in ascii117sing social media tools,' he said. 'It&rsqascii117o;s not that the tools don&rsqascii117o;t work, it&rsqascii117o;s that they&rsqascii117o;re not making effective ascii117se of it right now.'