Buzzwords and BS
Have you ever read a mission statement or company/product description and said to yourself, “what does that even mean?” If so, you’ve probably been “buzzed” by some industry buzzwords, jargon and marketing-type language and other BS. I like to call this stuff “the appearance of marketing” because it kinda sounds good for a second, but then you go, “…wait, I didn’t really get anything out of that.” It’s like the Chinese food of communications — leaves your mind hungry about 30 minutes later. Why do we create and use buzzwords? Well, I’m not a psychologist, but I think it’s because we want to include and also exclude people. nike air max 2017 goedkoop We all have those groups of friends where we share a lexicon of what things mean and more importantly what they mean to us. And in those circles, all of the inside references work really well and they help everyone feel included as a part of the group. But in corporate communications, where the objective to reach a larger audience, our “inside baseball” jargon works against us. nike pas cher 2017 It makes short sentences into longer ones and longer ones into impossibly long ones. I’m including a list of Inc. timberland femme Magazine’s Terrible Buzzwords that they’re seeing out there, but we all encounter and dislike not understanding what is going on. It makes us feel excluded and we move on from that message to another one — or a lost episode of SpongeBob Squarepants — a happy little sponge who uses zero buzzwords. Marketing people seem to love buzzwords and BS. Clever little uses of words with similar alliteration make us feel smarter. But we are not. Listen up. asics gel pas cher Marketing’s job is to get the message arrow from the sender to the receiver. Your “cleverness” could easily interrupt this. So follow these quick tips
- Say it in fewer words — always a great exercise
- Say it using active voice verbs — passive voice ones frighten and confuse people.
- Say it with no buzzwords. A good writer can ALWAYS get rid of those.
- Say it and dial back the hype knob. nike air max thea We know you’re excited, but please get it under control.
- Say it and test to make sure actual humans know what you said. If people can’t spit it back to you, try again.
I dream of a business world where we all have the emotional stability to move past buzzwords and toward actual marketing and communications.