It’s been more than 15 years since I opened my own marketing/public relations agency and during that time I have come to realize that an entire new lexicon has developed while I was sleeping, so to speak. I’m a pretty curious gal, try so when I come across a new word I immediately Google it. And lately, more often than not, I find myself rolling my eyes, shaking my head and then just going back to reading.
The reason I resort to the eye-rolling is that marketing people now, more than ever, feel compelled to invent new words for us to learn and to replace the older, less exciting words. When I hear the younger generation of marketers uttering the newspeak, that’s when I once again find my eyes rolling.
Really? Do we really need a new lexicon to define what we’ve been doing all along? For your ease, and to enable your own eye rolling, is a list of newspeak:
1. Analytics—We used to call these reports.
2. Content—We used to call this writing.
3. Curating—We used to call this organizing.
4. Earned media—We used to call this public relations.
5. Evidence-based—We used to call this research.
6. Engage—We used to call this commenting, sharing, listening, viewing.
7. Infographics—We used to call this pictographs.
8. Layering—We used to call this researching.
9. Metrics—We used to say measurements.
10. Monetize—We used to call this value.
11. Multiplatform—We used to call this entertainment.
12. Narrative—We used to call this the story.
13. Optimize—We used to call this improve.
14. Organic—We used to call this connecting, referring.
15. Owned media—We used to call this promotion.
16. Paid media—We used to call this advertising.
17. Resonate—We used to call this shared emotion.
18. Traffic—We used to call this circulation or viewership.
19. Transparency—We used to call this what everybody knows.
20. Value proposition—We used to call this core values.
21. Verbiage—We used to call these words.
