Are posters useful for experienced researchers?

I'm in the social and health sciences and do not know what field you are in, so this may be discipline specific. However, it is appropriate for advanced PhD students to give poster presentations. As a PhD student, you are considered a junior scholar (as you would also be considered as an pre-tenured assistant professor) and poster sessions are appropriate at this stage of your career. However, if publishing papers is more desirable than presentations in your field, it is advised that you spend more time working on getting your papers in print than presenting them at conferences. I know of academics who did not receive tenure, because they presented papers at a ton of conferences, but never submitted the papers for publication. Posters have great purposes, but may be less likely to turn into a paper.