Social media – it’s having an identity crisis.

The once friendly “add me”, “share me”, “like me” has well, gotten a bit annoying. And now we’ve got Google+ acting like it’s in an arms race with Facebook.  Help! A good thing is going oh-so-bad and getting oh-so-stale.

As small business marketers though, it’s hard to ignore the frenzy. It’s also hard to know when to turn off, and when to turn on.

For Get Scrappy and forZinio, I find myself sorting through this frequently. Which channels should I focus on? Which tools will drive my business? What does Social mean to acquisition versus retention efforts?

Early conclusions below…

If I had to whittle down my options to one or two customer acquisition channels I’d Turn On Facebook and Twitter. They lend  a (free) PR angle, and allow me/you to identify and follow favorite like-minded influencers.

Better yet build your own brand through an entourage of pictures, quotes, comments, blog posts, etc that enable you to enter conversations you simply wouldn’t have been able to at such large scale via random (live) networking events.  Yes, this requires some editorial skills. But 15, even 30 minutes of your day is a conversation worth having. Just be patient and remember it’s a dialogue you’re maintaining, day over day, with your core and prospective audience(s).

Facebook and Twitter also cater very well to the “sharability” factor. It’s an automated, domino effect that if one person comments on something you contribute to the online universe… hundreds, sometimes even thousands can pick up on it and start sharing. Now that’s free PR. And phenomenal audience reach for much less than a paid listing or banner ad would have cost you.

Turn Off LinkedIn, unless your focus is B2B.  As a business leader, make Social part of your personal activity steam. But business-side, it’s not a stellar organizational acquisition and/or retention vehicle.

And de-emphasize Foursquare. I’m sorry, but unless you’re a brick-n-mortar retailer there is little value-add (dollar-wise) to participating. It’s fun, yes, But not likely to drive significant revenue streams for an online commerce site or services oriented business. Like LinkedIn, there’s a lot of clutter and limited topic “shareability” beyond the inter-mittent status updates and location posts to your (yes) Facebook and Twitter status remarks.