Caroline McCarthy, a CNET News staff writer wrote this week that ‘Every once in a while, you read something on Twitter that’s just pitch-perfect, despite (or maybe because of) the microblogging service’s 140-character limit. Today’s honour is bestowed upon numbers guru and “Web Analytics: An Hour A Day” author Avinash Kaushik, currently employed as Google’s analytics evangelist.

On Monday, he posted a total zinger, framing it as an ‘OH’, or overheard, indicating that he wasn’t the one who actually came up with the contents of the Twitter message (or “tweet”) but didn’t want to openly quote the person who actually said it. ‘Social media is like teen sex,’ Kaushik tweeted. ‘Everyone wants to do it. No one actually knows how. When finally done, there is surprise it’s not better.’

And as I have been delving through blog after blog after blog trying to discover how we can help small businesses to benefit from the power of social media marketing – the above comments would seem to hit the nail on the head.

Some seem to say that it is worth a small business owner’s time to use social media to get the word out because it’s free, it gets quick results, it’s flexible, it gets easier with time, that it will lead to other valuable sources of traffic, that it builds links with social media and is safer than buying links, that social media users are predictable, that it doesn’t require as much time as we might think, that branding through social media is possible, that links can help your search engine rankings to rise quickly, and it allows you to leverage your existing traffic. And you may just target some visitors. In summary, the word declared is that the future of the internet is social. So be there.

So whether it is Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, Twitter, Blogs, consumer review sites, forums, discussion boards, online communities, social book marking sites, social news sites, social music sites and more. Whoo! I just get worn out writing about all these. We are being told to be there.

But the BIG question is this: Where is a small business owner going to get the time to do all of the above? Or do they need to hire a force of writers to get the word out? Or do they need to simply choose a few places on the Internet where they can begin to build relationships on a deeper level and then be positioned as experts in their own field?

These are the many questions being asked by business owners today!

But the biggest question is: Are we as small business owners in the 21st century going to wake up after it’s all over and agree with Avinash, surprised that ‘it’s not better’?