Not every language barrier involves English versus another native tongue. Sometimes, you may be speaking the inscrutable language of jargon.

I came across this dilemma twice in one day:

First, in a LinkedIn post about something called an AUM, which I later learned means “assets under management.”

Then, while editing a document with a reference to SEO. My client wondered if it should be written out as “search engine optimization.” I argued that “SEO” is a commonly accepted term that needs no explanation.

I realized I was wrong when he pointed out that it’s not such a common term for many of the people who’d be reading the document, including him.

Idioms are another barrier. Most native English speakers understand “sinking your teeth into something,” but a non-native speaker might find it a little weird.

It’s easy to fall into the use of jargon. As you become more expert in your field and your knowledge deepens, you can start assuming that everybody knows what you know. That’s fine if you’re writing for others in your specialty; defining SEO to a marketing audience would be a waste of their time and could even feel condescending. But if you toss off the initialism as though it’s familiar to a general audience, you risk driving them away before you begin.

Think before you use idioms, initialisms and other technical language that could alienate your reader.

Repurpose with Purpose

Are you running out of content ideas? Do you keep finding yourself desperately scratching around for something new to say about what you offer?

Relax. You have loads of new things to say – I know, because you’ve probably already said them.

Just about anything you’ve already published can be brought back, revised and reused. It’s called repurposing content, and if you analyze the most prolific social media writers, you’ll probably find they use this strategy to keep their online presence going.

When you repurpose content, you take something already published in one medium and revise it for another.

For instance, I’m writing a speech for a client to deliver to the life coaches she works with. I’ll turn that into a blog post she can use to attract new coaches to her practice.

I can probably tweet out individual points from the speech or turn at least one of them into an Instagram post.

There might even be small nuggets that would appeal to others in her audience besides coaches, which could be pulled out for a completely different take on the original subject.

5 ways to repurpose a single blog post

1. Pull statistics from the post and create an infographic. You can find lots of easy to use templates at design sites like Canva.

2. Turn that infographic into a series of slides for a live presentation.

3. Record the presentation and post it on Facebook Live or YouTube.

4. Convert one (or more) of those slides into an Instagram post.

5. Combine the slides into an e-book and offer it as a free bonus for joining your mailing list.

Repurposing content across multiple platforms pays off in new views and new readers.

Not Too Swift

Ocean Drive magazine hit one of my pet peeves in its September issue, when someone decided Taylor Swift’s Eras tour is actually her Era’s tour (with an apostrophe).

I see this a lot — using an apostrophe to make a singular word plural. You should do this in the occasional case of avoiding confusion, as in writing “do’s” instead of “dos,” which looks odd.

But in most cases, it’s a big NO.

Ocean Drive’s blurb wasn’t even a case of singular vs. plural. The name of Swift’s tour is Eras, not Era.

What’s with this fear of the simple plural? Apostrophes are for possessives and contractions and sometimes to eliminate confusion. That’s about it.

When it comes to the apostrophe, don’t make an S of yourself.

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