We are, absolutely, our own worst enemy.

Yes, us. Not the measurement issue. Not the lack of client knowledge. Not the ever-shifting landscape or the fight to be taken seriously. Us.

It happens every time we agree to ghost write a blog and pretend that we’re someone who really cares about a business. Every time we blindly recommend the full development of a blog when we’re pretty sure the client won’t be able to follow through with it anyway. We promote Twitter and Facebook fan pages when we know (and yes we do really know) that follower and fan count don’t mean that much. But hey, they’re a number we can bring back to the client!

Maybe all of this is just a reaction to the fact that “social media” as a marketing practice is coming of age in an economic downturn, and people are going to do whatever they can just to get the business. I’m not trying to take the moral high ground here either, I completely understand that situation, but where does it end? We can we stand up to the client and tell them we won’t spam tweets, or when will we stop pitching borderline strategy just so clients can say they’re “doing the social media stuff”?

Needless to say, there are always going to be smart people out there, people who push the thinking, have the client’s best interests at heart, and generally just fight the good fight. In my opinion, it seems like we could use a few more of those kind of people.