Inc.
These 10 Buzzwords May Not Mean What You Think They Mean
By: Amy Vernon
There are more buzzwords every day. In fact, one might even say some buzzwords are ... wait for it ... viral. My job is to make sense of all the latest and, well, maybe not greatest, buzzwords out there.
Amplify -- "Make louder. Wait. That's not right. Except it kind of is. Dammit, why can't we just say, 'buy ads'?"
Bizmeth - Saying "business method" sounds so ... boring. Bizmeth makes people think you're talking about drugs, which makes it very memorable when you tell them it's actually business-speak.
Blue Sky Thinking -- "People like blue skies better than rain. So if we say our thinking is like blue skies, they will like us more."
Clickability - The quality of being clickable. In other words, something that doesn't suck and is worth clicking on. Unless it's click-bait, in which case you're lying to your readers and making them think it's worth clicking on.
Footprint -- Everything you've ever done online. Better start deleting tweets and photos and hope no one's already taken screenshots.
Growth Hacking -- This used to be called business development, but that sounds so corporate. If you want all the cool millennial kids to like you, you'll need to hack your growth, not develop business.
Humanize -- People like to think they're dealing with people, not a big, faceless corporation. But if they have any complaints, send them into the never-ending voice mail line. Unless they tweet about it, then answer it right away. As long as it's during business hours.
Hyperlocal -- The area immediately outside your customers' front door, which is obviously the only place they actually care about.
Pinteresting -- "Our target market is women, and we know the ladies love Pinterest, so remember that when something is even marginally interesting, it's actually ... pinteresting."
Transparency -- "People like it when we're authentic, so we need to show them exactly how we want them to think we're really doing things."
