I hear this all the time. “I can’t write. I don’t have time. What would I write about? I’m a lousy writer.

Seth Godin would say that is your lizard brain yelling at you. It’s creating excuses, throwing up obstacles. I say, “Just do it.”

You can’t write, but you can if you practice. You can if you are writing about something you believe it. (You believe in your company’s products and services, I hope.)

You have to make time. Marketing costs money or time. Either hire a marketing firm or schedule some time – regular appointments when you are freshest is best.

What do I write about? I have answered this numerous times. Tell stories about your customers, your community, your industry, your employees, your charity. What do you talk about at networking events? Write a short post about that. (It’s a place to start!)

You are a lousy writer – now. With practice (and maybe some editorial help) you will get better. But to do that you have to get started!

If you don’t want to write — audio and video work too!

What’s a social media mercenary? Someone you hire to blog, tweet, facebook, or otherwise be your voice on social networks.

I ended up coining this term during a twitter discourse with Jim Alexander (@tweetmaker) about whether or not this practice was good or not, and whether it should be transparent.  The point about social media that I like is that it needs to be both authentic and transparent.

Apparently, many companies hire tweet-makers like Jim to do all of their social media for them. If it is not disclosed, when (not if) it comes out, you will have lost some integrity.

Consumers understand that press releases are written by a firm.  Customer service can be done by an outsourced company – as long as the company is actually delivering service (which today sadly doesn’t happen enough). There are other tasks that can be outsourced.

But the conversation that you have with your customers, the dialog that builds a relationship, should be authentic. And by that I mean, it needs to come from a stakeholder – an employee, an owner, a shareholder, even the owner’s spouse. That’s the voice of the business.

When the CEO hires someone to blog for him, why bother?Just issue press releases. It’s about the same idea. The good blogs from executives offer insight, a story, a look inside, a personal touch. A good example is the Bear on Business blog from Zayo CEO Dan Caruso.

Do you think that Steve Jobs can hire someone to do the Apple presentations? Nope. The Mac-heads would freak out. Their relationship with Apple and Jobs is what gives the company that cult-like feel.

Do you think that Tony Hsieh at Zappos could have outsourced his social media and still built a $1B business?

Dell could probably have outsourced their Outlet twitter sales, but I bet it wouldn’t have worked as well or been tracked as accurately.

Can Rubbermaid outsource its forums and blogs? Probably not because it’s the tone and voice (and continuity) of the blog that keeps readers coming back. They come for the story from the storytellers that they know.

There’s the other side of the coin: companies complain that they don’t do social media because they can’t control the message. How do you control the message by outsourcing it?

I will say that in relationship building, it would be difficult to outsource. And the relationship would be damaged when it comes out that the conversation wasn’t with the manager at company X but their social media mercenary. And it will come out. We live in an age where privacy is disappearing more and more every day. It’s just a matter of time before that brand gets damaged due to a lack of transparency or authenticity.

And for Jim who says that his small business clients can’t find the time: I call bull sh!t. Employees are on social networks all day anyway. As a SM mercenary, my job is to get them all to spend 15 minutes per day on social networks for the good of the company. That’s a little harder than just doing it for them, but you can fish for someone or you can teach them how to fish.  (Of course, there’s more money in just fishing for them).

At the very least, these social media mercenaries need to be transparent. There needs to be a disclaimer that it is the agency not the actual company.

Would you hire someone to go to a business networking event for you? “Hey, Jim, here’s $40, go to the Hotspaces event and meet people for me and collect business cards. Hey, give them my card too.”

Would you hire a stand-in for a cocktail party?  These are the analogies I hear for social networks – cocktail parties and online networking events. How do you substitute?

Seriously! Everyone is a social media expert. There are thousands walking around to take your money to teach you about social media. How can you tell the real ones from the opportunistic ones?

Google them. If not much comes up, then they are all talk no action.

Review their Twitter profile. If it is updated multiple times every day with @ replies and RT retweets as well as his/her own tweets – daily – then they are just giving it lip service.

Read their blog. Is it current? Is it updated multiple times per week? What do they talk about?

It’s not about the number of followers. It’s about the number of people listening. It’s about the number of people you are engaging that makes social media so powerful.

Gary Vee says it is the platforms to utilize for personal branding. He’s right. Marketing is marketing. The key today is to tell a compelling story that will interest your audience. Publishing that story is the magic pixie dust of social media because you can publish it for free on many platforms.

So before you plunk down money on social media training, make certain that the person in the front of the room is actually utilizing social media – and utilizing the way that you might want to.

In addition, if they talk about the number of followers, walk away. It’s about the message (the story, the content). It’s about having a conversation with the marketplace.

To do that, the expert should help you with your strategy, your goal for each platform you will be active on, and identify who you are targeting and where they hang out. (No sense in being on MySpace if you aren’t targeting teens and musicians).

Don’t listen to just anybody. You didn’t for your offline marketing, did you?