What social media words do you want to retire?

I caught a conversation on Twitter built around the Twitter hashtag #buzzwordbingo that made me smile wryly.

It looked at some of the most overused phrases in social media, including “It’s all about the conversation” and “Pain points and point of need.”

These terms are used so often and yet even 12 months ago (or more) they were being looked at as overkill. It could be a sign of many things: social media has a lot of growing up to do, there’s a dearth of originality in the medium, or the industry simply has a stream of new players and existing terms.

Either way, it made me think of some phrases that could be put into the social media retirement home.

1. It’s not about me. The amount of times this little gem is used means that even if the user is sincere, they’re questioned as to the authenticity of the statement. Of course, it doesn’t help if the user then goes on to make it exactly all about them with self-promotional hits at every turn.

2. Fish where the fish are. Social media must be full of anglers if this phrase has anything to do with it. Either that or I should start looking for a boat, stat.