Marketing By Kristin Fettig
BuzzFeed to Buzzwords Marketing words you should know…and a few you should forget! The marketing world is “abuzz” with trendy and sometimes confusing definitions that attempt to explain what is going on behind the marketing scene. Most of us have been known to pick up the latest trendy talk (buzzwords) to sound like we are “in the know” and give a little credence to our understanding of the latest developments. To help you sort through the rhetoric, here are a few of the top terms to look for. I’m also including a few more terms we suggest you leave out of your marketing vocabulary. (Editors Note: Space restrictions prevented us from including all of Kristin’s buzzword definitions. The entire list of words appears here but some of the definitions are included only in our online version at hamiltoncountybusiness.com.)
Brand Advocate In social media, your brand advocate is the customer who is actually helping you market your product or service. They are a very valuable resource because they like you
or your product so well that they are spreading the good news on social media and extolling the virtues about your company completely on their own. Find your brand advocates on social media: engage with them and empower them! Throwing them a discount or incentive occasionally is also a great way to keep them engaged and “lifers.”
Brandjacking This is the hijacking of a brand by an unscrupulous company or individual to promote an agenda or damage a reputation. It is often a disgruntled customer, but it can also be an unethical, strategic attempt by competitors to gain more business. Brandjackers typically don’t hack into the social media accounts themselves but rather target an online identity through more indirect means like setting up fake accounts, creating inflammatory hashtags or marketing campaigns targeted to discredit a company. Brandjackers are unethical at best and illegal at the worst.
Call to Action (CTA)
BUZZ WORDS
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The CTA is the direction to the consumer in marketing communication that gets them to perform the desired action or elicit the desired response. “Click here,” “check this out,” “Like us on Facebook” or “Buy this” are examples. The newest and most innovative CTA’s involve creatively asking your customer to do something, without it looking like you are asking them. Facebook is flagging almost all content with a call to action that is not a purchased ad, so creativity is born from the necessity of not spending ad money.
Clickbait This a term that describes a marketing or advertising ploy that sensationalizes a headline or puts a strange or engaging picture on a website to attract people to click on the story. Often there is no substance or a lot of hype for very little return. Think of it as the online Enquirer (you know that magazine with the crazy stories that you just have to look at in the checkout line at the grocery?) Most of us have fallen into the trap because our curiosity gets the best of us. There is just enough interest to get us to peek and we have fallen into the marketing or advertisers hands. We have given them a false “click-through” on our end but a clickthrough for them is the ultimate goal, whether we received anything from it or not!
Crowdsourcing The act of engaging “outsiders” and soliciting ideas or content from a group of people online. Think about it in terms of a cross between a survey and a focus group on the internet. You are collaborating with the online crowd to gather information that will help you to make better decisions for your business and/ or product. With the new Twitter surveys, this is a small-scale option to get a “crowd” opinion.
Find definitions of these buzzwords online at hamiltoncountybusiness.com: Employee Advocacy Community Management Content Marketing Conversion Rate Guerilla Marketing Geotargeting
February • March 2016 • Hamilton County Business Magazine