Tucked into an article about the origins of the phrase “Emerging Markets,” this week’s Economist neatly captures the importance of catchphrase branding in B2B thought leadership:

“These days the market in business catchphrases is saturated. Every business writer wants to produce a rival to ‘The World is Flat’ or ‘The Long Tail’. Every management consultancy wants to coin the follow-up to ‘re-engineering’ or ‘total quality management.’ Such famous turns of phrase are the gurus’ equivalent of brands: they burnish their reputations for original thinking and ensure that they stand out in a crowd. A brilliant catchphrase can be worth millions in book sales and speaking fees.”

I would submit that there are two additional hoops through which such phrasing must jump to survive, much less take advantage of the social media channels that now overlay all B2B communications:

1. Be 100 characters or less so that it can fit into a status update with room to spare for an executive’s name, a link and an “RT.”  And the more explanation you need, the shorter the term must be.

2. Be SEO friendly. It’s not enough that a catchphrase is unique within your sector.  It must be unique within ALL sectors in order to stand out when someone searches for it on Google.  Conduct searches for the phrase using several search engines.  Then use keyword search tools like Wordtracker or SEMRush to make sure that your phrase will have a fighting chance against other search results when someone’s looking for related information