1. Guru…or Rockstar…or Ninja…or (Insert Whatever Moniker is Popular Right Now) - No you’re not. not even in the slightest. You are more than likely a slightly nerdy guy or girl who has some understanding of analytics, html and marketing initiatives.
A guru is a Hindu religious teacher. This is not you.
A rockstar is a famous person who plays an instrument or sings in a rock and roll band. This is likely not you as well, unless you have a side rock band. But then, why the Hell are you sitting in an office optimizing websites or writing ads.
A ninja is a person in Japan who dressed in black and mostly attempted to assassinate people in power, but usually failed miserably. That is why “Marketing Ninja” is by far my favorite term. Ninjas mostly sucked at their job. But hey, if that’s you, good on you.
2. Game Changer- I’ll admit it, there a definitely things that happen that change the game, so to speak. Unfortunately, your idea to add alt tags to your sites images or to actually interact with your customers is not it. They’re good ideas, and that is all. Thanks to every damn speaker at every damn conference calling every damn thing a game changer this term has lost all meaning. You know what would be a game changer? If everyone would stop using all these stupid buzzwords. Maybe people would respect us more.
3. Content Marketing – I am going to preface this by saying that there is nothing wrong with writing great, engaging content on your website. In fact, it is probably the single most important thing you could be doing. Unfortunately, our community has ruined content marketing by labeling it that. What happens, and is already happening, is people think that they HAVE TO find a way to cheat the system. That there has to be an easier way. Some of us used to call it writing and have been doing it forever; back when most Internet marketers were still “link building”. The problem is that we have given it a name, and therefore it is only a matter of time before we ruin it (it’s already happening).
4. Verbiage – We used to call these words.Now you’re just trying to look cool.
5. Humanization – There was a time when business was inherently personal. You simply knew that if you had a business and wanted to make money, you had to be personable or people wouldn’t use your product or service. Somehow we have gotten so far away from this concept we had to assign the act of answering the telephone and interacting with others its own verbiage (see how I did that).
6. Evangelist – I am going to be completely honest here. If you call yourself an evangelist I really want to punch you in the face. By definition, an evangelist is a person who evangelizes a religious doctrine. These are the sleazy guys you see on the television every Sunday morning begging poor people for money. But hey, again, if that’s you, good on you.
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