In David Meerman Scott's book, The New Rules of Marketing and PR, there is a section about the words and phrases marketers have overused and therefore invalidated from any impact they might have once had. He refers to these words as "gobbledygook" and even wrote a whole manifesto on the topic.
Words and phrases that lack meaning are the enemy of good blogging. They undermine any impact you hope to make and erode any trust you hope to build. They're empty, meaningless, useless, and sometimes just downright misleading. Instead of using these words, try something that actually says what you mean. Even better, say something you can absolutely validate.
In the list below, I've pulled several examples of gobbledygook from David Meerman Scott's book with a few of my own personal favorites (or non-favorites as the case may be.) Starting today, don't ever use these words or phrases again:
- Synergy
- Best practice
- Revolutionary
- Leading
- Unsurpassed
- Cutting-edge
- Best in class
- Unparalleled
- Out-of-the-box thinking
- Industry-standard
- Since 1964 (or whenever it was the business started as if that matters)
Consumers know these words usually don't mean anything but good marketers still use them like they make the copy more official when they're present. The good news is that the tone and style of social media has really changed the voice of professional communication. Whereas the kind of words listed above used to pass for professional, it now sounds like the empty, meaningless stuff it was all along.
I still have to stop myself sometimes from using a few of these, but I'm trying to remove them from my professional vocabulary. Maybe if I do I'll really be an out-of-the-box, cutting-edge, revolutionary consultant with all of these best practices and bags full of synergy. Now that would be unparalleled!