Dear Baby Boomers,

It’s time you learn to talk about the Internet intelligently. Seriously. You’re really embarrassing the rest of us every time we hear you say, “The Google” or “all those Facebooks”.

Here’s a quick, but handy guide to get you up to speed with the rest of the planet so you won’t have people staring at you incredulously in meetings. —Thanks in advance, Dave (a Gen-Xer who cares)

“The Google” does not exist
Google is Google. There is no “the” placed before Google. Ever. Same goes for any social network. It’s simply Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc. While nothing on the Internet is a physical location, you should use the rules of locations to refer to sites and companies online. After all, you don’t “go to the Macys.” You go to Macy’s. Right?

Internets and Facebooks
Stop pluralizing the names of social networks. You would be horrified if your son or daughter said, “I read Wall Street Journals” or “I drive a Toyotas,” but you feel no shame at all about adding an ‘s’ to the end of a social network. Why? It’s wrong, and you should stop doing it.

Tweeps, not twits

Twitter’s many idioms can be problematic for many. Here is the official list:

• Twitter: The Web site and company is called Twitter. Again, not “The Twitter” and please do not pluralize it into “The Twitters”
• Tweet: A message consisting of 140 characters using some form of Twitter is called a tweet, not a twit, twip, twitter and certainly not a twat (Yes, I have heard you use all of these variants. Cringeworthy). The past tense is tweeted.
• Tweep: Someone who is an active user of Twitter is often called a tweep, not a twit, twat (arguable), Twitterite, Twitz or Twitizen.
• RT means “retweet” or the act of reposting a tweet by someone else that you like or find useful. You do not write out retweet. Ever. The RT followed by a space, then the Twitter handle of the person who wrote the tweet is sufficient and will code the tweet for you. For example, if I wanted to retweet a post by Chris Brogan, I would start the tweet with RT @chrisbrogan

JPG is not a verb
JPG (originally JPEG) is actually an acronym referring to the Joint Photographic Experts Group. JPG is a file format, but not a verb. Never say, “Can you JPG this for me?” Instead try, “Can you convert this image into a JPG, please?” It is possible that over time, JPG as a verb may become an accepted improper usage (much as Photoshop and Google have become verbs).

Cyber-anything is passé
Only government agencies use cyber as a prefix. The rest of the world stopped using it in the 1980s. If you’re using cyber-anything, you’ll be seen as outdated and not getting it. I am amazed that the military still insists on using cyber, knowing their Gen Y target as well as they do. It’s a holdover and you should let it die a natural death.

What’s the difference between the networks?
Glad you asked. While all of them have overlapping features, here’s the one phrase definition for each one, so you can be a cocktail party intellectual about social networks.

• Facebook is for establishing and maintaining relationships of all kinds
• YouTube, Vimeo, Hulu and Dailymotion are for watching and sharing videos
• Flickr, Instagram and Picasa are for browsing and sharing photos
• StumbleUpon is for randomly finding interesting sites
• Twitter is for short form communications of all kinds
• Digg, Alltop and Reddit are for discovering trending news items
• Google+ has yet to be established enough, but it looks like it will be great for businesses
• LinkedIn is for connecting with businesses, associates and finding jobs and employees
• Foursquare, Loopt and Gowalla are for letting others know where you physically are (such as stores, bars, etc.)
• Groupon, Shopkick and LivingSocial are for getting great deals on products and services
• MySpace, SoundCloud and ReverbNation let musicians distribute their music
• Match, Chemistry, OKCupid and JDate are for finding dates and potential life partners

You didn’t go online. You didn’t go anywhere
Finally, let’s talk about “going online”. Boomers and seniors (Silent Generation) seem obsessed with using the term “going online”. As if the act of using their computer to access a site is going on a top secret mission. “Strap me in Helen. I’m going online.” Sorry, pal. You never left your seat. Gen X and below never refer to going online because to us, the Internet is ubiquitous and never need be referred to. It’s as awkward as if you had said, “Well, I’m going to apply electricity to this lamp now.” We know you are. Electricity is a given. So is the Web. You aren’t going to or going on, you’re reading, browsing, gaming, sharing, uploading, etc. Got it?

Did I miss any other Boomer blunders? Please share them in the comments.

UPDATE: For those Boomers who did not get that this post was meant to be tongue in cheek, it was. It’s facetious. OK?

I know. All of you marketers out there want to include testimonials on your micro sites, landing pages, online media and Facebook pages. Don’t. I’m begging you not to.

“But, Dave! Consumers are more likely to trust another person’s review of a product than what the brand says about itself!” Aha! You said review, not testimonial. That’s the distinction. It’s the word testimonial. It’s poison and you should endeavor to stop using it. The general belief among consumers regarding testimonials is one of skepticism:

Reviews and comments are genuine; testimonials are not..

Most people believe testimonials were written by the company, and that names in the testimonials are probably those of employees, their spouses, etc. At the same time yes, consumers certainly trust each other’s words over that of brands.

Worse still, do a search for the phrase, “testimonials are fake” or “I write fake testimonials” and you’ll see that many marketers and companies wondering if they should write fake testimonials. They are often answered by others who not only admit to using fake testimonials, they recommend using them as traffic drivers! Make no mistake; it is illegal to use fake testimonials. [See the Lanham Act, Title 15]

This makes the fix simple. Never use the term testimonial in your marketing. Use “reviews” or “comments” instead. This is especially important in the headers above the content. Headings appear in search and search engines use them to help organize data and give you smarter results. Consumers search on the term “reviews” constantly. Testimonials rarely shows up high in search. That alone is a reason to use reviews as the heading. And please, only use real reviews from your customers.

What terms have you found to be effective?

Additional Reading
30 Ways You Can Spot Fake Online Reviews [The Consumerist]
How to Spot a Fake Testimonial [Clear-Writing.com]
When Fake Testimonials Cost a Company $300,000 [The SEO News Blog]
Fake Testimonials & the Ethics of Freelance Writing [Grow Your Writing Business]
The Legal Ramifications of Posting Fake or Paid Reviews Online [PracticeDock Blog]

While I like this post on bounce rate, I disagree with the author’s statement that bounce rate is simply, “…the most basic expression of dissatisfaction with your site users can give you.”

No headline relevance
The author missed one reason for bounce rate that may be the most common cause, but few SEO pros write about it: What the user sees on your site may not match the expectation given by the ad banner they clicked on.

In other words, they aren’t dissatisfied with your site per se; they are dissatisfied with the advertising they clicked on. As an example, I recently read an ad for a retail product that was all about price and comparison to the competition. I clicked on it, expecting to learn more why this product was superior to its competition. Instead, I was sent to a microsite that had no mention of price or competition. It was more of an immersive experience type of site and not at all what I expected to land on.

The fix is simple: Ensure that your online advertising messages are in sync with the page it is linking to. The payoff must be there for the user or the user will be confused, frustrated and have a lower opinion of your brand.

No content relevance
Another way the ad banner can increase bounce rate (which is bad), is by not sending to the proper page in the site. Too many times, a company will spend countless hours creating thoughtful and helpful landing pages that go unnoticed because the ad sent everyone to the homepage instead of directly to that relevant content.

The fix for this is also simple: Ensure whomever purchases your online media knows about landing pages. It’s perfectly OK to send a user 3-5 levels deep in the site from an ad. Better still, make the landing page into a subdomain and purchase a domain name for it.

Thoughts?