Product Names Used as Verbs

build a narrative not a mission statement

Successful social products have one commonality that signifies their dominance: they are talked about as verbs.

There has been a fair amount of discussion that the most important product marketing is how users explain a product. A company can launch a million marketing campaigns to educate people on their product, but ultimately the users will create the narrative of what that product is, how to use it and when to use it.

The most successful social products share a common theme, their names become verbs when people talk about using them. We’ve all heard, “did you facebook her”? “you should instagram that”, “I linkedin with him”. This dialogue has two main consequences: it drives usage as people articulate these products as verbs, and they engrain the cadence of how we should use these products.

A beautiful sunset? Instagram it. A friend drunkenly dancing? Snapchat it. A really awesome quote someone said at a keynote? Tweet it.

When we begin using the names of these products as verbs it is a strong signal that the narrative has been set and the product has strong market fit. We don’t realize it, but when we use a product name as a verb we are capturing its utility. Instagramming a sunset translates into instagram is the tool you want to use to capture this moment, and share it with all your friends.

Products used as verbs have one singular meaning. I don’t know any products that are used as verbs that mean multiple things. To “facebook” someone implies only to look them up. Interestingly enough you never hear people say you should “facebook” something.

What’s the point?

Don’t over think a mission statement because that is a high level and often vague focus. I’d imagine it would be more helpful to design around a narrative of how you want early adopters explaining a product to their friends. And in order to be successful at that your product should be simple enough that a user can describe it as a verb.