Bredemarket Inland Empire B2B Services: Iterating LinkedIn/Facebook Page/Group Names

Author’s Note: this is one of two seemingly unrelated Bredemarket blog posts that form a cohesive whole. Actually PART of a cohesive whole.

• Why I Raised Bredemarket’s Consulting Package Prices
• Bredemarket Inland Empire B2B Services: Iterating LinkedIn/Facebook Page/Group Names (this post)

Introduction

It would be nice if my initial plans for my consultancy Bredemarket were perfect and addressed my consulting needs for years to come. But my plans are NOT perfect, in part because I can’t anticipate what will happen in the future.

And so I iterate. Which is why I’m renaming the Bredemarket General Business Services Facebook group and the Bredemarket Local Firm Services LinkedIn showcase page.

In this post I examine why I created Facebook groups and showcase pages in the first place, why I originally named the Facebook group “Bredemarket General Business Services,” why I subsequently named the LinkedIn showcase page “Bredemarket Local Firm Services,” and why I’m changing things.

Why create Facebook groups and LinkedIn showcase pages?

When I established Bredemarket in 2020, I knew that I wanted to target multiple customers. This sentence on the Bredemarket home page has remained unchanged since 2020:

Bredemarket presently offers its services to identity/biometrics, technology, and general business firms, as well as to nonprofits.

From https://bredemarket.com/

These four customer groups have some different needs. A nonprofit’s concerns differ from those of a fingerprint identification software vendor. Because of this, I wanted to find a way to talk directly to these customers.

Back in November 2020, I started by creating a LinkedIn showcase page entitled Bredemarket Identity Firm Services. I started with this one because I had a need to communicate with just my identity customers. As of April 21, 2022, 186 people are following this showcase page to receive identity-only content.

Why I created the Bredemarket General Business Services Facebook group

I didn’t stop with that one LinkedIn showcase page. By July 2021, I had created a second LinkedIn showcase page devoted to technology, but was also creating Facebook groups.

So Bredemarket…has Facebook groups that are somewhat similar to the Bredemarket LinkedIn showcase pages. One difference is that I have three groups on Facebook. In addition to the identity and technology groups, I also have a general business group. At this point it didn’t make sense to create a LinkedIn showcase page for general business, but it did make sense for Bredemarket to have such a group on Facebook.

From https://bredemarket.com/2021/07/16/how-and-why-a-company-should-use-linkedin-showcase-pages/

You can see how these Facebook groups (and LinkedIn showcase pages) are derived from my original 2020 statement of Bredemarket’s target markets. To a point; as I noted, I didn’t create a general business showcase page on LinkedIn, and even today I don’t have a nonprofit LinkedIn showcase page or a nonprofit Facebook group.

But I would begin to pivot Bredemarket’s business that summer.

Why I created the Bredemarket Local Firm Services LinkedIn showcase page

By September 2021, I was questioning my market segmentation.

As I write this, Bredemarket has no clients in my hometown of Ontario, California, or in any of the nearby cities. In fact, my closest clients are located in Orange County, where I worked for 25 years.

It’s no secret that I’ve been working to rectify that gap and drum up more local business.

From https://bredemarket.com/2021/09/03/shattering-my-assumptions-by-using-linkedin-for-local-marketing/

After attending Jay Clouse’s September 2021 New Client Challenge, I determined to pursue this local market more aggressively and determined how I was NOT going to pursue Inland Empire West customers.

So when I market to local businesses, I’ll want to do that via relevant Facebook Groups. Obviously I won’t market the local services via LinkedIn or Twitter, because those services are not tailored to local service marketing.

From https://bredemarket.com/2021/09/03/shattering-my-assumptions-by-using-linkedin-for-local-marketing/

Let me draw out the implied assumption in that statement above, that even the Facebook marketing would be via groups created by other people. It wasn’t like I was going to create my OWN local Facebook group or anything like that. I was going to post in the Facebook groups created by others.

Anyway, proving that my initial plans are NOT perfect, I fairly quickly changed my mind regarding LinkedIn, deciding to create a LinkedIn showcase page devoted to local services, even though I didn’t have (or need) a parallel Facebook group.

And in fact I’d cheat by adapting the artwork for the Bredemarket General Business Services Facebook group and repurpose it for use in the Bredemarket Local Business Services LinkedIn showcase page.

This appeared to be a brilliant idea, and the new local LinkedIn showcase page was successful. Not as successful as the Bredemarket Identity Firm Services LinkedIn page, but it certainly provided me with an avenue to speak just to the local community.

Aren’t I brilliant?

Why I’m changing the names of the Facebook group and LinkedIn showcase page

Well, maybe not so brilliant.

Time went on, and I would share identity stuff to the “Identity Firm Services” showcase page and group, and I would share technology stuff to the “Technology Firm Services” showcase page and group. When I wanted to share local stuff, I’d obviously share it on the Bredemarket Local Firm Services LinkedIn showcase page, and sometimes I’d also share it on the Bredemarket General Business services Facebook group.

But this raised two questions.

What is the Bredemarket General Business Services Facebook group?

The third market category that I created in 2020 isn’t making sense in 2022. If you go to the Bredemarket General Business Services Facebook group today, it’s kind of vague. In fact, you could say it’s, um, general.

If you scroll through the group posts, you’ll see a lot of posts from me that have to do with businesses in California’s Inland Empire.

Because I do not moderate the posts in the group, other people like to post, and their posts can be, um, general. For example, there is one person who occasionally posts things like this.

Now I have no reason to reject the post, because the poster isn’t violating any group rule. However, this person could use the services of a marketing and writing professional. The company is doing SOME things right. such as advertising the services provided, including illustrative pictures, and incorporating a call to action. The call to action, of course, is to call…

…061 531 5144?

For those who aren’t familliar with geography, Kempton Park is outside of Pretoria, in South Africa. Which means that if I had wanted the company to provide a quote when my own roof was damaged by winds, I would have to call the country code 27 first, THEN call the local area code 61 and the local number 531 5144.

Somehow I doubt that Ontario, California is in this company’s service area.

Now I could have posted a comment along the lines of “You idiot! Do you really think that people in this group are going to contract with a roofer on another continent?” But I didn’t do that. Instead, I simply commented with this question:

Where is the service located?

From https://www.facebook.com/groups/bredemarketbusiness/posts/1034813817123791/

Over a week later, the original poster hasn’t responded to my question. I guess the poster is too busy writing “Thought the group would like this” posts on every “general business service” Facebook group. (Terrible waste of the poster’s time, when you think about it.)

And that’s what can happen when you create a group for “general business services.” It’s too general.

What is the Bredemarket Local Firm Services LinkedIn showcase page?

Thankfully I avoided this same problem when I created the Bredemarket Local Firm Services LinkedIn showcase page.

Or did I?

If you don’t know me or my background and encounter a showcase page devoted to “local firm services,” what are you going to think?

That’s right. The page name doesn’t mention the locality that is the focus of the page.

Next thing I know, my roofing friend is going to discover my Linkedin showcase page and start posting weekly, with an equal lack of success.

How do I make these better?

So it’s obvious that both the LinkedIn showcase page and Facebook group would benefit from a refocus and a rename.

But what name?

If you had asked me this question in September 2021, I would have chosen the name “Bredemarket Inland Empire West Firm Services.” My local marketing target at that point was businesses in Ontario, California and the surrounding cities. “Inland Empire” was too broad a term for those cities, but “Inland Empire West” is a real estate term that fits nicely in my target market area.

This also tied in with a marketing promotion that I was running at the time, in which I would offer a discount for customers in this immediate area. However, I recently rescinded that promotion (as part of the numerous changes I’m currently making to Bredemarket’s business). Since I wasn’t making money (from an opportunity cost perspective) with my regular package pricing, I certainly wouldn’t make money with DISCOUNTED package pricing.

At the same time, I was getting less strict about keeping my target within the Inland Empire West, and was therefore open to extending throughout the Inland Empire. Although most of my online collateral is currently targeted to the Inland Empire West, I won’t turn down business from Moreno Valley or Redlands.

So perhaps I could use the name “Bredemarket Inland Empire Firm Services,” without the “West.”

But I didn’t like that either.

While “Firm” implies that I work with businesses and not individuals (I don’t write resumes), I figured it would be clearer if I used “B2B” instead of firm. “Business-to-Business” would be better, but that would make the page/group title awfully long. Of course some people don’t know what “B2B” means, but that could be an effective filter; if you don’t know what “B2B” means, you’re not going to use Bredemarket’s services anyway.

Having settled on the title “Bredemarket Inland Empire B2B Services,” it was now a matter of making the title change. (Without changing the legacy URLs and potentially breaking existing links.)

So now I can formally re-announce…

…the Bredemarket Inland Empire B2B Services LinkedIn showcase page.

And…

…the Bredemarket Inland Empire B2B Services Facebook group.

Again, the URLs don’t match the page/group titles because of legacy issues, but I think it’s better than what was before. And hopefully this will focus the content and make it more relevant.

Unless you’re a Pretoria homeowner with a leaky roof.