Last year, Ritz-Carlton Hotel experienced a different kind of disappointment with advertising campaigns. The company wanted to promote its brand page on Facebook but quickly stopped the campaign. Unhappy executives saw too much gain from these ads. Now, rather than trying to grow its fan base, Ritz-Carlton has focused on analyzing its social media conversations to better grasp the likes and dislikes of its guests. The plan highlights a shift in corporate social media strategies.

As the fan base grew, “we were fearful our engagement and connection with our community was dropping,” said Allison Sitch, Ritz-Carlton’s vice president of global PR.

Many companies are beginning to focus on quality over quantity. “Fans and follower counts are over. Now it’s about what is social doing for you and real business objectives,” according to Jan Rezab, chief executive of Socialbakers.

Gallup concluded that social media advertising is not as powerful or persuasive as companies hoped they would be.

After polling 18,000 U.S. consumers, Gallup found that 62 percent found social media had no influence on their buying decisions, while 30 percent felt some influence.

“Consumers are highly adept at tuning out brand-related Facebook and Twitter content,” says Gallup. In fact, social media ads had a tendency to turn people off.

Nielsen also found that global consumers were more likely to trust ads on television, print, radio, billboards and trailers over social media.

As a result of Facebook managing the news feed to feature items targeted to the user, brands went down 16 percent in fan reach.

“The way brands should think about this is changing,” a Facebook spokesman explained to The Wall Street Journal. “Fans should be a means to positive business outcomes — not the end themselves.”