We’re Killing Our Important Words

I saw an e-book recently online called “The Ultimate Guide to Content Marketing.”

So being a content marketing guy, I downloaded it and I found it to be far short of the ultimate anything. It was an okay guide to content marketing. It was an average guide. It was a somewhat mediocre, perhaps lackluster guide to content marketing.

But we use that term “ultimate” all the time because we’re trying to merchandise thought leadership.We’re trying to get clicks. We’re trying to stay on somebody’s radar.

We also overuse the term “awesome” all the time. I’m guilty of that. That’s one of my pet phrases.

Let’s remember that awesome actually means “something that causes awe.” How many times do you say the word awesome, and the thing that you mean actually causes awe?

Another word that we have completely wrung the power out of in our zeal to get noticed is “remarkable.”

We say the word “remarkable” all the time, but we completely forget that what remarkable really means is “worthy of remark.”

Remarkable is important. Remarkable is a critical factor in business.

Every interchange, every intersection that you have with a customer or prospective customer, anybody that you care about, should in fact be remarkable. That interaction should be worthy of remark. But we toss that word out just like it’s nothing.

Now that we’ve completely overused words like “ultimate” and “awesome” and “remarkable,” where do we go from there?

When those words are used to describe things that are absolutely average, what words do we use when we find something that truly is worthy of remark, that causes awe, that is the ultimate?

Do we go with the “Super-Ultimate Guide to Content Marketing”? I’m not sure.

I would love to hear your suggestions for what the next round of adjectives may be, because the ones we’ve got right now no longer have any power.

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