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Don't put this in your gig description!


smashradio

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Ok, so you're ready to set up a new gig on Fiverr. You want your gig description to sound smart and intelligent! So you put in a couple of buzzwords and some marketing jargon to impress your buyers. But hold on! You might be doing a mistake! 

First, here's what I mean by marketing jargon and buzzwords: 

They are pointless fancy-sounding fillers meant to replace real meaning. You think it sounds smart, but you're alianating your buyer when using this top-down style of communication. 

Here's an example from a Fiverr gig I came across earlier today: 

"I utilize creativity-driven mindfullness to present upstanding brands by connecting emotional stories with driven clients."

It sounds like something taken straight from a bad "about us" page written by some pompous dude in a rental suit

And it's completely meaningless. After reading that sentence, I still don't know what the seller does. I know he's trying to impress me with fancy words, sure, but frankly, I'm just as confused as I was before reading it. 

He could have just written "I use top-down buzzwords to sound smarter than you. That way, you'll think you need my stuff, and pay me more than it's worth for it"

So let this post be a clear narrative for amitious sellers looking to build consumer-driven actions in a game-changing world of global influencers leading the differentiation by challenging your core business strategy. 

Or in other words: Learn from this if you want to be a successful seller. 

Buzzwords ain't cool, man. 

(Ok, so you can use them, SPARINGLY! But if you want to be clear in your business communication, stop talking down to people, because you might end up alienating your buyers instead of attracting them.)

"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication."

- Leonardo DaVinci

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Guest lloydsolutions
9 minutes ago, j6nyc6 said:

with a fried egg in the middle.

Am sure it is more palatable than double spam with large font in the middle! 🙂

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While I get your point, you are preaching to the wrong choir. Half the meksells would be way better served by copy consisting entirely of grammatically correct buzzwords than whatever they have there atm. Does it look sleazy and corporate BS to a lot of buyers? Yes. But it will look impressive to many (ignorant) others, there's a reason corporate buzzwords are so used - they work. And it's better than totally broken copy filled with mistakes any day of the week anyway.

If you want to attract serious, professional buyers who know what they're doing, avoid it. But a lot of sellers should not target that kind of buyer, since they would not be up to their standards anyway. Better focus on the low hanging fruit, and the long hanging fruit sure does love the big words, they make them feel important. 

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On 9/12/2021 at 2:51 AM, smashradio said:

Ok, so you're ready to set up a new gig on Fiverr. You want your gig description to sound smart and intelligent! So you put in a couple of buzzwords and some marketing jargon to impress your buyers. But hold on! You might be doing a mistake! 

First, here's what I mean by marketing jargon and buzzwords: 

They are pointless fancy-sounding fillers meant to replace real meaning. You think it sounds smart, but you're alianating your buyer when using this top-down style of communication. 

Here's an example from a Fiverr gig I came across earlier today: 

"I utilize creativity-driven mindfullness to present upstanding brands by connecting emotional stories with driven clients."

It sounds like something taken straight from a bad "about us" page written by some pompous dude in a rental suit

And it's completely meaningless. After reading that sentence, I still don't know what the seller does. I know he's trying to impress me with fancy words, sure, but frankly, I'm just as confused as I was before reading it. 

He could have just written "I use top-down buzzwords to sound smarter than you. That way, you'll think you need my stuff, and pay me more than it's worth for it"

So let this post be a clear narrative for amitious sellers looking to build consumer-driven actions in a game-changing world of global influencers leading the differentiation by challenging your core business strategy. 

Or in other words: Learn from this if you want to be a successful seller. 

Buzzwords ain't cool, man. 

(Ok, so you can use them, SPARINGLY! But if you want to be clear in your business communication, stop talking down to people, because you might end up alienating your buyers instead of attracting them.)

"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication."

- Leonardo DaVinci

I like your style of expressing stuff. I kind of do it myself too! 

I feed Fiverr also support the concept, "Less is more" - Ludwig Miles. So they don't need our tittle to be a huge paragraph. They like genuine simplicity, everywhere possible.

Hope I am right on this.
Cheers!

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On 9/16/2021 at 3:49 PM, visualstudios said:

While I get your point, you are preaching to the wrong choir. Half the meksells would be way better served by copy consisting entirely of grammatically correct buzzwords than whatever they have there atm. Does it look sleazy and corporate BS to a lot of buyers? Yes. But it will look impressive to many (ignorant) others, there's a reason corporate buzzwords are so used - they work. And it's better than totally broken copy filled with mistakes any day of the week anyway.

If you want to attract serious, professional buyers who know what they're doing, avoid it. But a lot of sellers should not target that kind of buyer, since they would not be up to their standards anyway. Better focus on the low hanging fruit, and the long hanging fruit sure does love the big words, they make them feel important.

I disagree that it works. So does the numbers: 

When asked about workplace jargon in general, must of the responses were benign: 36% were amused, 26% found it enjoyable, 27% stopped paying attention, and 24% felt nothing at it. 

Some (24%) see this language as ethos building, and over half (54%) see it negatively

Source: https://www.goto.com/blog/connect/jargon-buzzwords-workplace

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10 hours ago, smashradio said:

I disagree that it works. So does the numbers: 

The numbers for one study of 2000 American workers. I was very clear to say this wouldn't work for everyone. Basically the more sophisticated the buyer is, the less it will work. But it can be a good idiot magnet. You can use this to target people that actively like it, as they exist (even in your linked article, 26% found it enjoyable. 26% of any market is not a bad number). 

And my other point still stands - better to have a bunch of buzzwords in your copy than totally broken English.

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On 9/20/2021 at 5:45 AM, visualstudios said:

The numbers for one study of 2000 American workers. I was very clear to say this wouldn't work for everyone. Basically the more sophisticated the buyer is, the less it will work. But it can be a good idiot magnet. You can use this to target people that actively like it, as they exist (even in your linked article, 26% found it enjoyable. 26% of any market is not a bad number). 

And my other point still stands - better to have a bunch of buzzwords in your copy than totally broken English.

Just had to find an example, while doing other stuff. 

Yeah, sure, if you actively wish to attract idiots, it might work. But if you do, you're an amateur, and I want nothing to do with it. 

Anything is better than broken English. But I prefer to not chose between the plague and cholera. 

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I'm recently on fiverr, but I've already seen some very overloaded descriptions of gigs. I have a suspicion that this happened because most people have never learned to write texts (and it's okay) and do not know where to start and how to continue. Thus, they borrow unsuccessful speech patterns from each other without even knowing it.
For those who have never faced the need to write texts, I would advise you to read Elements of Style or On Writing Well at your leisure. These are basic textbooks on the culture of the writing.
I didn’t become an expert in writing after these books, it’s not my job, but it helped me write more easy-to-read texts. 

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