In recent years, the idea of content marketing was considered a “buzzword”, however it is now a necessity in many, if not all, marketing campaigns. As marketers, we hear new buzzwords every day, adding to the already vast amount of marketing jargon. Sometimes, B2B marketers can get sucked into the allure of these new and exciting terms, however they have no idea what they mean, as well as if they have any relevance to their marketing campaign.

When looking for ways to improve marketing campaigns, one might see the growing trend in mobile marketing. While it may work for certain B2C applications, a responsible B2B marketer should determine their market's presence on mobile platforms before putting an emphasis on mobile marketing techniques. Despite the popularity of smartphones and mobile devices, some B2B target markets may not be consuming as much mobile content as marketers would think. Despite popular content marketing resources citing data regarding B2B mobile marketing as effective, they leave out important critical factors, such as which B2B industries have seen a significant impact with mobile marketing.

Mark Schaefer coined the words “Content Shock,” which are defined as: “when increasing volumes of content intersect our limited human capacity to consume it.” In essence, content shock is a catastrophic event in the marketing atmosphere where the production of content greatly outweighs the ability for us to consume; organic reach will eventually be impossible, and we will have to pay for content distribution in order to drive any sort of traffic to our content. While we have seen a decline in organic reach within recent years, the amount of content being produced and distributed is not the most significant factor, but rather the avenues through which they are distributed. With changing algorithms and more emphasis on paid advertising on social outlets becoming more commonplace, we should always be anticipating these changes within each “free” outlet from which we can distribute content from.

Just because your client and their competitors believe in the idea of “social media real estate” doesn’t mean you, as a marketer, should. This is when a brand or company joins every social media outlet, even if some of those outlets have little to no relevance with their brand, industry or target audience. In addition, it becomes increasingly difficult to both populate those outlets with effective content and followers. Do not fall victim to joining every outlet possible if it is not utilized widely within your target audience, especially without proper research into the social outlet’s primary functions and suitability for your industry.

As much as marketing buzzwords clutter the already confusing language of marketing, they serve as a lingua franca between the client and agency. Some buzzwords indeed sound worse than others, and to our dismay, the novelty of those buzzwords end up becoming desired by the client. Nonetheless, it is up to responsible marketers everywhere to remain vigilant and always research the relevant industries in order to see if these trends fit within the marketing campaign.