“Hey Brad, what’s the CTR on that omnichannel growth hacking infographic?”
“Gee, Sally, I don’t know. Is that part of the remarketing campaign we designed the storyscape for last week?”
Tell you a secret…
I fucking strongly dislike jargon.
Mainly because I can never remember it all. At meetings, I sometimes need to Google to remind myself what it means, so I’m sat there looking up business-speak on my phone instead of joining the conversation. (“What’s a vertical? I forgot…”)
Makes me feel like the only kid in the gang who has to check Urban Dictionary to find out what “Netflix and chill” really means. 😉
But I’m gonna set aside my personal issues with jargon for now, and focus on giving you exactly what the title of this post promises: your ultimate guide to when and how to use jargon in freelance blogging, and when to avoid it entirely.
Just in case we’re not on the same page yet, jargon is specialist language used by a specific group or type of person, often in a business or academic setting.
And part of what defines it as jargon is the fact that it only makes sense to the specialists who already know and use it.
In other words, most people on the planet *don’t* use it and have no idea what it means.
So, first of all, the golden rule is simple: