Connor BrookeComing up on a new year inevitably motivates bloggers to write posts reflecting on the past, or pontificating on the future. This post squarely fits in the pontification category. Add a little ranting to it, and you have a recipe for a 2013 wish list of 10 Internet marketing phrases that should disappear forever.
Return on Influence – This is a wishy-washy “metric” that social media marketers use to avoid reporting return on investment. Executives don’t care about influence — they care about the bottom line. This phrase would not be missed if it disappeared next year.- Link Building – Google’s Penguin update has made link building for the sake of link building a relic of the past. Writing great content, guest blogging on relevant websites and digital PR are the only forms of “link building” accepted by Google today. Guess what? That’s not link building – It’s content marketing, guest blogging and digital PR. Let’s call it what it is.
- Splash Page – What the heck is a splash page? OK, everyone knows what it is, but why do Internet marketers call it a splash page? There’s nothing splashy about it. It sounds like visitors to a splash page will be presented with the Internet’s version of jazz hands. It’s either an under construction page or a segmentation page.
- Mobile SEO – There’s no such thing as mobile SEO. According to Jesse Laffen, mobile search results are some of the least personalized. Mobile SEO is just simply SEO. Mobile websites sit on the same Internet as non-mobile websites.
- Reciprocal Linking – Penguin has successfully extinguished this tactic. In 2013, it should exit stage left and leave the Internet marketing lexicon forever.
- Comment Spam – This used to be the scourge of the Internet. In fact, it’s caused many webmasters to moderate their blog comments. Since Penguin was released comment spam has diminished substantially. Next year should see the official demise of comment spam.
- Conversation – This is what some social media marketers believe is good marketing. Social media conversation doesn’t drive ROI. It’s neither scalable nor predictable. Landing pages, conversions and lead nurturing, on the other hand, are scalable and predictable. As a result, driving social media traffic to a landing page for conversion can drive ROI. This is achieved by using social media as a content broadcast channel while others organically evangelize said content – not social media conversations.
- Transparency – This is just a fancy way of referring to honesty and openness in social channels. So, was it ever a good idea to lie and obfuscate in marketing? Telling marketers to be transparent is like reminding human beings to breathe. It’s not necessary.
- #FF or #FollowFriday – In its prime #FollowFriday was a popular weekly tradition on Twitter. Today, it certainly sits on the downward slope of the curve with the laggards. It’s dying a slow death and probably won’t make it past 2013.
- Bounce Rate – Marketers worry about this number too much. Bounce rates vary greatly across industries and channels driving traffic. Besides, what’s a good bounce rate? It’s a rate better than the competition which can’t be tracked. The rate Google reports is a dirty number that can be skewed for a variety of reasons – to include bots, RSS and bookmarking sites (especially Stumbleupon.com). A more meaningful rate to track is visit to conversion.
Return on Influence – This is a wishy-washy “metric” that social media marketers use to avoid reporting return on investment. Executives don’t care about influence — they care about the bottom line. This phrase would not be missed if it disappeared next year.The above pontification — with a hint of rant — only represents 10 phrases of industry jargon that should disappear in 2013. This leaves plenty of room for others. You’re HIGHLY encouraged to add your most hated jargon below. Don’t be shy. . . let ‘em fly.
This article was written for Business 2 Community by Connor Brooke.
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I am the author of the book “Return On Influence.” It was never designed to be a metric and I certainly never advocated that. It is an important marketing trend, not a form of measurement.
Mark:
I didn’t include that phrase because of your book. I’ve never read it. However, I have come across articles making the case that social return on investment should be ignored in favor of “new” metrics like return on influence – that’s what I was targeting with adding that phrase.
However, I have read some of your stuff online in the past and have come to the conclusion that most of our views align very well. I consider you a true thought leader in our biz. If I would have known you authored a book by that name perhaps I would have chosen a different phrase that I’ve seen disguised as an ROI replacement – there’s many. . .
Have a great holiday and thanks for chiming in!
@CPollittIU
I find it a bit hypocritical to write a blog post denouncing jargon, while offering the term “segmentation page” as a solution. Try telling that to the 50-year-old farmer I’m building a website for.