By Noemi Pollack
Forty of the Worst Jargon:
- Awesome (the Grand Canyon, yes; most sandwiches, no)
- Amazing (lightning, yes; eating grapes, no)
- Empower (does Oprah still think she rules the world?)
- Embolden (where are the emboldening seminars held? Can’t we just stand up for ourselves?)
- Enrich (oh, just say “better” and be done with it)
- Nurture (why not “cultivate” or “bring up”?)
- Jaw-Dropping and Eyebrow-Raising (I’d get a lot of facial exercise from these activities if I followed Buzfeed’s directives).
- Out Of The Box Thinking
- In The Weeds
- In No Way, Shape Or Form
- Lots Of Moving Parts
- Actionable
- It’s On My Radar
- Snackable Content
- Impactful
- Best Practices (why are the best? just because everyone uses them? i’d like to see “effective practices”)
- Guerilla Marketing (targeting consumers shouldn’t be compared to warfare)
- Viral (If people like it, great, let’s not make the success of a content sound like a disease, try “it got lots of views”)
- SEO (not the tactic, but the use of it as jargon—let’s SEO that, as if it gets sprayed down with Google-Flavored mayonnaise)
- Exciting
- Think Pod
- Curated
- Expertly Curated
- Well-Curated
- Deep Dive
- Chief Ideation Officer
- Clickbait
- Freemium
- Growth Hacking
- Advertainment
- Gamification
- Hard Bounce vs. Soft Bounce
- Organic Mention
- Game Changer
- Strategic Partnership
- Burning Platform
- Abilify
- Contextual Marketing
- Ideation
- Value-Added Mindshare