When I was in university, we used to play a drinking game while watching a movie. Every time a character said a particular word, you had to drink some beer. It made for pretty interesting cinema.
If you played the same game during a social media or blogging conference using the words “conversation” and “engage”, you’d get drunk pretty quickly. They are the two catch-phrases when it comes to explaining not only why companies need to get into social media but what they need to do once they get there.
“You need to have conversations with your customers and engage with them” has become a social media mantra.
While it’s still early in the game, “conversation” and “engage” need to be retired. Plagued by overuse, they have become boring and ineffectual. Sure, having a conversation and engaging are important social media pillars but it’s time to move on.
Maybe we can start using words as “embrace” (as in embrace your customers), “build” (as in build relationships) and “drive” (as in drive new customer growth, sales and profits).
Any suggestions on an expanded social media vocabulary?
3 Comments
Is creating fresh vocabulary really a concern? Completely agree that the words you're citing are beyond overused, but these sorts of terms also create a quick reference point to enable people to exchange ideas without barriers to entry into the discussion.
As for your drinking game at conferences, you're probably right, but doesn't that speak as much to the creativity and originality of the speakers (and conference programmers' reliance on "the usual suspects") as it does to the need for new vocabulary?
All Jargon goes through a lifecycle:
Early adoption: Someone comes out with a new idea (or a brilliant re-packaging of an old idea) such as "You should monitor the conversation and engage your customers)" and others think, hey that sounds somewhat wacky but it could work. I mean we're living in this brave new tech world.
Mass Adoption: Everyone latches onto the buzz words. We now drop "conversation" and "engagement" as a matter of course in every day speech. It makes us sound 'current' and 'with it' not because we are 'current' and 'with it' but because we fear that if we don't mention them, we won't have a chance of being 'current' and 'with it'.
Oversaturation and slow death: The more something gets used, the less cool it becomes. Some indications that we've reached that stage: a) Your boss, client, manager, starts asking you for a conversation strategy in the same manner as the McDonald's server asking "if you want fries with that" b) Your parents/grandparents tell you that you're not "engaging with them enough and should call more so you can have more "conversations" and/or c) Blog posts like this proliferate lamenting the overuse of once cool jargon.
Ha! Nice breakdown, Jason!