Ignore the Names, Please Take Us Seriously. Please?

by Guest Blogger, Lena West, Chief of Social Media Strategy at xynoMedia

As I travel speaking to groups of dynamic businesswomen about social media, I'm always met with chuckles when I mention the names of some services like Twitter, TweetDeck, TweetBeep and HootSuite.

Even I find it hard to believe that the names of some Web 2.0 companies don't play a large part in traditional marketer's distrust/leeriness/general dismissal of new/social media. When traditional marketers say things like, "New media is a fad for kids," it's hard to refute it when you have to use company names like Twitter, Flickr, FriendFeed, Plurk and Pownce, to answer their questions.

Don't get me wrong, I think the services themselves are great...and the names are fine, too. As long as you're talking to other new media types.

It's just having to say them when talking about the benefits of social media to I-don't-know-about-all-this-new-media-stuff CEO's, CMO's, CFO's and investor relations types is a bit...weird. Even for me and if you've ever heard me speak, you know I don't hold back much. :)

If we could play let's pretend, do you think social media would be more easily adopted if Twitter was called MicroBlog, Flickr was PhotoShare, FriendFeed was New Media Dashboard and Pownce was ShareData? Or some other equally absurd, boring, easy-to-understand names?

When you first started learning about social media, did the names of these services make any impact on your ability to take the benefits seriously? Why or why not?

If you had your way, would you name these services any differently? If so, which names would you choose? If not, why not?

Comments

[Lena L. West]

@Michelle:
Ha! You're funny -- and right!

@Laura:
Oh, I don't know if I was suggesting to rename FriendFeed :) but I think it's interesting to consider "what if". I'm not sure it would have the cool factor, but more corporate sounding names would help with client adoption...however, I think it's tine for a shake-up in corporate reality anyway! :)

@Monica:
You're right on all fronts. I vote for the more interesting names. It's time for change! :)

Thanks to you all for reading and commenting!

[Michelle Girasole]

GOOGLE.

That's all I'm sayin'.

[Laura Powers / @hgmarketing]

Lena,
How true this is! At least LinkedIn and Plaxo have a "more serious" ring to them. I always feel a little goofy talking about Tweets and ReTweets, etc. with my clients.

Good suggestion to rename FriendFeed to New Media Dashboard. It would save a bit of explanation.
Thanks for posting,
Laura

[Monica Rix Paxson]

I personally would NOT be interested in the more literal corporate sounding names, which are generally the kiss of death for a younger or more creative audience and those early adopters looking for something novel to try. I think it is amusing that corporate troglodytes miss the point entirely until the are looking at the evidence of strong upstarts in the Wall Street Journal while wondering what happened to their profits this year. Names should be fun or interesting -- or at the very least -- memorable. The Internet is an important entertainment medium and that is about the last thing most execs are comfortable with.