There are plenty of posts about convincing your boss to try social media, or finding your customers online, or even just listening to the industry chatter as a way to get started. Well, what do you do if you have tried all these tactics to no avail. What about taking some of the principles of social media engagement and call them something different? These are not new ideas, but the development of the social web has made it much easier to engage with a larger number of customers and prospects. When combined with the inbound marketing benefits of search, this broadens the capabilities of these techniques.

The corporate world is filled with buzzwords, jargon and doublespeak, especially in meetings and reports. Here’s your chance to innovate with your communication strategy right under the noses of those who are resistant to change. The good news is that when your boss comes to you in six months and asks you to put together a committee to begin exploring social media, it will be very easy because you had already done your research and implemented it. And this can only work if you are inside a company and have some degree of authority, however, you can use this idea even if you are pitching communications programs to clients. Stay away from terms that make them nervous.

The following is a list of some common social media terms and their corporate-friendly substitute terms.

social media = contemporary web strategy
social media newsroom = interactive information center
social networking = online forum
social bookmarking = shared favorites
blogging = regularly updated website
microblogging = active listening
Twitter = next phase of online engagement
LinkedIn = LinkedIn

If you have thought of taking this strategy, please let us know in the comments below. Also let us know if you have invented any choice euphemisms for social media terms.

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