What silly words say about the people who use them.
Evidently, some “experts” still refer to Social and Mobile as “emerging” media. Um, no. Stop. Watch this video by Loic Lemeur and pay particular attention to the second half. He catches an interesting semantic flaw in an otherwise interesting report he outlines in his video.
If the link doesn’t open, watch the video here, and check out Loic’s full post .
Two things:
1) “emerging” is always going to qualify a state of adoption rather than a type of media. It isn’t good terminology. Neither is “new media” for that matter.
2) Neither Social nor Mobile qualify as emerging. Mobile is evolving and scaling, sure, but it isn’t emerging. Facebook’s scale has also long transcended “emergence.”
Beyond the topic of “emerging media,” other words, terms and concepts commonly misused in the new world of Social and Digital Communications:
- R.O.I.
- Viral
- Social Media Campaign
- Social Media Presence
- Platform
- Monitoring
- Influencer
- Social Media Manager
- WOM
- Pull
- Impressions (By the way, can we please scratch the term “impressions” from the Marketing lexicon once and for all? Thanks. That would be nice. Especially when dealing with Social.)
Look, here’s the deal: True experts know the vocabulary of their respective fields of study/practice. I am not implying that having mastered the Social Media lexicon makes someone an expert in the subject, but rather that no expert will get the basic vocabulary wrong: Plumbers, surgeons, snipers, cobblers, tailors, architects and masons know the vocabulary of their trade. Social Media “professionals” worth their fee (whether analysts, consultants, trainers or practitioners) do too. Simple enough.
