My Name is Shel and I'll Be Your Jargon-Cop Today

One of my pet peeves is professional communicators who can’t communicate.

Today I followed a link to an interesting-sounding article about why businesses could benefit from managing multiple Twitter accounts for different purposes. As a social media strategist (among other hats I wear), I figured I could get some fresh perspective.

What I got instead was a load of jargon so thick that I could barely (and with great effort) figure out what they were talking about. An example:

Drivers are the perceived need for audience community segmentation strategies… message volume… and/or native language requirements, among others. What should be balanced is multiple account need v. management complexity, a particularly difficult line to walk given that Twitter tools remain very fluid with functionality still evolving.

I have 37 years in communications, journalism, and public relations and I barely have a clue what the writer is talking about. I think the average small business owner would be unable to extract any useful nugget at all from this. But if you want to see for yourself, here’s the link: https://scoopdog.wordpress.com/2009/09/03/1092/

Folks…if your job is to communicate, you should communicate so that other people can understand you. This stuff may as well be written in Martian. I can’t even tell if I agree with the central premise (I think I don’t, but I’m not sure).

Unfortunately, there’s no such thing as a citizen’s arrest or big fine for jargon–but I’d write the ticket if I could.

PS: If you’re interested in a much more accessible approach to maximizing social media, I recommend the free webinar I’m hosting with George Kao and Allison Nazarian on September 22: “Success with LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook in 15 Minutes Per Day” – I’ve been on three calls with George this summer, and I love his clarity and focus.