Noah Webster was an author who published the American Dictionary of the English Language in 1828. His work has lived on through the contribution of others, as the English language has incorporated new words over the decades. When historians and linguists look back on the post-Internet launch era, they will no doubt be faced with an array of words that have little or no logical context, but have become an accepted and widely used element of our vernacular. Google for example didn’t exist until 1998. Google is a term that has since become ubiquitous.
There are times when I catch myself in meetings or on calls saying things that are part of our industry jargon, but are so ridiculous sounding that I chuckle. Did I actually just send out an email encouraging our team members to blog more consistently? What was I thinking when I asked our design team to rearrange our website so that our tweets can be displayed on our homepage?
The beauty of the Internet is that it has become integral to our lives in more ways than we realize and we have not even begun to scratch the surface of how individuals and companies will utilize it moving forward. Most businesses that are excelling online have adopted the jargon and are engaged in the community aspect of the Internet.
Much of the freshest terminology emanates from Social Media. Terms like SEM and long tail are so old school. Learn the lingo and then begin to experiment with the channels. If you need an additional incentive to step into the next phase of the Internet’s development, consider that SEO results are now prevalently incorporating Social Media channels.
