Last updated on Aug 6, 2024

You're clashing with the marketing team on slang in social media. How do you find common ground?

Navigating the dynamic world of social media marketing can sometimes lead to clashes, particularly when it comes to using slang. You want your brand's voice to resonate with your audience, but you're finding yourself at odds with your marketing team over the appropriateness and effectiveness of slang. The key to finding common ground lies in understanding each other's perspectives and objectives, aligning on strategy, and ultimately creating a social media presence that both engages your audience and upholds your brand's integrity.

1 Align Goals

To bridge the gap between you and your marketing team, start by aligning your goals. Understand that both parties aim for the brand's success but may have different views on how to achieve it. Discuss openly what each side hopes to gain from using slang. Is it about being trendy or relatable, or is there concern about maintaining professionalism? Clear communication about your objectives sets the stage for finding a compromise that satisfies both the need for relatability and the desire to maintain brand reputation.

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Jasmine Green

Social Media Maven | 10 Years of Influencer Marketing Experience | Blogger
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Finding common ground is all about effectively listening to your counterpart's concerns, showing receipts to support your opinion, and being willing to compromise. Slang can be "scary" but that doesn't mean it isn't effective. Teams must be willing to speak and act like their social audience to affectively reach them with their message. Sometimes it takes having hard conversations to make this happen. Remove your emotions and fear from the equation and state the facts.

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Asma Sohrab

I assist busy business owners in managing their LinkedIn Accounts | Profile Optimization | Building Personal Branding | Content Creation | Copy Writing | Creative Writing | Management & Engagement | Email Marketing
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When clashing with the marketing team on using slang in social media, communication is key. I'd suggest a meeting to share our views. I'd explain that while slang can make posts trendy and relatable, it must fit our brand voice and audience. We could review engagement data together to see what our audience prefers. Sometimes, a mix works best—using slang on platforms like Instagram and TikTok where younger audiences are, and keeping LinkedIn more professional. By collaborating and testing different approaches, we can balance trendy content with our brand identity.

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Jagadeesh R.

Digital Marketing Specialist | Digital Marketing Trainer #DigitalStrategist #BrandGrowth #MarketingStrategy #DigitalExpert #OnlineMarketing #SEOExpert #PPCExpert #DataDrivenMarketer #DigitalStrategy #ContentStrategist
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Listen and Understand: Hear out the marketing team's concerns and priorities regarding brand image and audience perception. Highlight Benefits: Explain how using slang can enhance engagement, relatability, and reach with specific demographics. Present Audience Insights: Share data or insights on audience preferences and trends related to language use on social media. Propose Clear Guidelines: Suggest guidelines for when and how slang can be used to maintain brand consistency and professionalism. Discuss Examples: Provide examples of successful slang usage by other brands to illustrate potential impacts Test and Evaluate: Agree to test different approaches with measurable metrics to assess effectiveness and adjust strategies accordingly

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Muhammad Usama Bin Babar 💎

IT Project Manager | Strategic Digital Marketer | React JS Frontend Developer
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Start by ensuring that both your team and the marketing team have a clear understanding of the overarching goals. Whether it's increasing brand awareness, driving engagement, or boosting sales, aligning on these objectives will help you find common ground. Discuss how using slang might contribute to or detract from these goals, ensuring that everyone is working towards the same outcomes.

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2 Know Your Audience

Understanding your audience is crucial in this debate. You need to research and present data about who your followers are, what kind of language they use, and how they react to slang in social media content. This isn't just about age demographics; it's about the cultural context, online behavior, and preferences of your audience. When both sides see concrete information about the audience's expectations and responses, it becomes easier to decide if slang is appropriate and, if so, which terms resonate best.

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3 Monitor Trends

Social media is all about staying current, so it's important to monitor trends together with your marketing team. This doesn't mean blindly following every new slang term that emerges. Instead, evaluate which trends align with your brand's voice and values. Share insights on trending language and discuss whether incorporating such terms could enhance engagement without compromising the brand's image. By keeping an eye on trends together, you can make informed decisions that everyone agrees on.

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Muhammad Usama Bin Babar 💎

IT Project Manager | Strategic Digital Marketer | React JS Frontend Developer
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Keep an eye on current social media trends and how language evolves in your industry. Regularly monitoring trends can help identify which slang terms are popular and effective in engaging your audience. Use tools like social media listening platforms to gather data and present these findings to the marketing team, demonstrating the impact of trending language.

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4 Test and Learn

When opinions clash, testing can be a powerful tool to find common ground. Propose a controlled experiment where you integrate slang into a few posts and measure the audience's engagement. By setting clear metrics for success, you can objectively assess the impact of using slang. This approach allows both you and your marketing team to base decisions on data rather than assumptions or personal preferences, leading to a strategy that is both effective and collaborative.

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5 Set Guidelines

Once you've gathered data and insights, work together to set guidelines for using slang in your social media content. These guidelines should balance creativity with consistency, ensuring that any use of slang is deliberate and aligns with your brand's voice. Establishing clear rules on the types of slang that are acceptable, the frequency of use, and the contexts in which they're appropriate can prevent future conflicts and provide a reference point for creating content.

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6 Evaluate Impact

Finally, regularly evaluate the impact of incorporating slang into your social media strategy. Review engagement metrics, audience feedback, and overall brand perception to determine if the use of slang is achieving the desired results. This ongoing evaluation not only helps in fine-tuning your approach but also ensures that both you and your marketing team remain on the same page regarding the effectiveness of your social media efforts.

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