You can express a single thought on multiple channels. And as far as I’m concerned, the more the merrier.
Me on “expert” advice on social media channel adoption
Incidentally, that’s why I object to the “expert” advice that I master one social media channel first before branching out into others.
If I adopt that strategy and ONLY market on LinkedIn and ignore Instagram and TikTok, I am automatically GUARANTEEING that the potential Instagram and TikTok audiences will never hear about my offer.
“How I Expanded 1 Idea into 31 Pieces of Content”
I’ve expressed my thoughts on this social media “expert” advice before:
The latter post, entitled “How I Expanded 1 Idea into 31 Pieces of Content,” described how…well, the title is pretty self-explanatory. I created 31 pieces of content based on a single idea.
The 31 pieces of content, published both through the Bredemarket channels (see above) and via my personal channels (including my jebredcal blog and my LinkedIn page), all increased the chance that SOMEONE would see the underlying message: “Your prospects don’t care about your technology.” Each piece of content was tuned for the particular channel and its target audience, ensuring that the message would resonate.
Speaking of repurposing, I’ve already adapted the words above and published them in four different ways (this is the fourth)…and counting. No TikTok video yet though.
Can Bredemarket help you repurpose or create content?
And if I can do this for me, I can do this for you.
Bredemarket can help you create content that converts prospects and drives content results. Why?
If you’re sold on using Bredemarket to create customer-focused messaging (remember: your prospects don’t care about your technology), or even if you’re not and just want to talk about your needs, there are three ways to move forward with your content project. Or you can just join the Bredemarket mailing list to stay informed.
Book a meeting with me at calendly.com/bredemarket. Be sure to fill out the information form so I can best help you.
If you’re familiar with Bredemarket’s “six questions your content creator should ask you”…I came up with a seventh question because I feared the six questions were not enough, and I wanted to provide you with better confidence that Bredemarket-authored content will achieve your goals.
To no one’s surprise, I’ll tell you WHY and HOW I added a seventh question.
If you want to skip to the meat, go to the WHAT section where you can download the new e-book.
Why?
Early Sunday morning I wrote something on LinkedIn and Facebook that dealt with three “e” words: entertainment, emotion, and engagement, and how the first and second words affect the third. The content was very long, and I don’t know if the content itself was engaging. But I figured that this wasn’t the end of the story:
I know THIS content won’t receive 250 engagements, and certainly won’t receive 25,000 impressions, but maybe I can repurpose the thoughts in some future content. (#Repurposing is good.)
Rather than delving into my content with over 25,000 impressions but less than 250 engagements, and rather than delving into the social media group I discussed, and rather than delving into the Four Tops and the Sons of the Pioneers (not as a single supergroup), I decided that I needed to delve into a single word: indifference, and how to prevent content indifference.
Because if your prospects are indifferent to your content, nothing else matters. And indifference saddens me.
The first questions in the Bredemarket Kickoff Guide, BmtKickoffGuide-20231022a. No, you can’t have the guide; it’s proprietary.
I decided that I needed to update my process, as well as that e-book, and add a seventh question, “Emotions?”
What?
For those who have raced ahead to this section, Bredemarket has a new downloadable e-book (revised from an earlier version) entitled “Seven Questions Your Content Creator Should Ask You.” It includes a new page, “Emotions,” as well as minor revisions to the other pages. You can download it below.
Money 20/20 is taking place in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA from Sunday, October 22 to Wednesday October 25.
While I am not in Las Vegas, Bredemarket will monitor the goings-on and share relevant news on Facebook (Bredemarket Identity Firm Services group), Instagram (Bredemarket), LinkedIn (Bredemarket Identity Firm Services page), bredemarket.com, and elsewhere.
For example, when biometric companies want to justify the use of their technology, they have found that it is very effective to position biometrics as a way to combat sex trafficking.
Similarly, moves to rein in social media are positioned as a way to preserve mental health.
Now that’s a not-so-pretty picture, but it effectively speaks to emotions.
“If poor vulnerable children are exposed to addictive, uncontrolled social media, YOUR child may end up in a straitjacket!”
In New York state, four government officials have declared that the ONLY way to preserve the mental health of underage social media users is via two bills, one of which is the “New York Child Data Protection Act.”
But there is a challenge to enforce ALL of the bill’s provisions…and only one way to solve it. An imperfect way—age estimation.
Because they want to protect the poor vulnerable children.
By Paolo Monti – Available in the BEIC digital library and uploaded in partnership with BEIC Foundation.The image comes from the Fondo Paolo Monti, owned by BEIC and located in the Civico Archivio Fotografico of Milan., CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=48057924
And because the major U.S. social media companies are headquartered in California. But I digress.
So why do they say that children need protection?
Recent research has shown devastating mental health effects associated with children and young adults’ social media use, including increased rates of depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, and self-harm. The advent of dangerous, viral ‘challenges’ being promoted through social media has further endangered children and young adults.
Of course one can also argue that social media is harmful to adults, but the New Yorkers aren’t going to go that far.
So they are just going to protect the poor vulnerable children.
CC BY-SA 4.0.
This post isn’t going to deeply analyze one of the two bills the quartet have championed, but I will briefly mention that bill now.
The “Stop Addictive Feeds Exploitation (SAFE) for Kids Act” (S7694/A8148) defines “addictive feeds” as those that are arranged by a social media platform’s algorithm to maximize the platform’s use.
Those of us who are flat-out elderly vaguely recall that this replaced the former “chronological feed” in which the most recent content appeared first, and you had to scroll down to see that really cool post from two days ago. New York wants the chronological feed to be the default for social media users under 18.
The bill also proposes to limit under 18 access to social media without parental consent, especially between midnight and 6:00 am.
And those who love Illinois BIPA will be pleased to know that the bill allows parents (and their lawyers) to sue for damages.
Previous efforts to control underage use of social media have faced legal scrutinity, but since Attorney General James has sworn to uphold the U.S. Constitution, presumably she has thought about all this.
Enough about SAFE for Kids. Let’s look at the other bill.
The New York Child Data Protection Act
The second bill, and the one that concerns me, is the “New York Child Data Protection Act” (S7695/A8149). Here is how the quartet describes how this bill will protect the poor vulnerable children.
CC BY-SA 4.0.
With few privacy protections in place for minors online, children are vulnerable to having their location and other personal data tracked and shared with third parties. To protect children’s privacy, the New York Child Data Protection Act will prohibit all online sites from collecting, using, sharing, or selling personal data of anyone under the age of 18 for the purposes of advertising, unless they receive informed consent or unless doing so is strictly necessary for the purpose of the website. For users under 13, this informed consent must come from a parent.
And again, this bill provides a BIPA-like mechanism for parents or guardians (and their lawyers) to sue for damages.
But let’s dig into the details. With apologies to the New York State Assembly, I’m going to dig into the Senate version of the bill (S7695). Bear in mind that this bill could be amended after I post this, and some of the portions that I cite could change.
This only applies to natural persons. So the bots are safe, regardless of age.
Speaking of age, the age of 18 isn’t the only age referenced in the bill. Here’s a part of the “privacy protection by default” section:
§ 899-FF. PRIVACY PROTECTION BY DEFAULT.
1. EXCEPT AS PROVIDED FOR IN SUBDIVISION SIX OF THIS SECTION AND SECTION EIGHT HUNDRED NINETY-NINE-JJ OF THIS ARTICLE, AN OPERATOR SHALL NOT PROCESS, OR ALLOW A THIRD PARTY TO PROCESS, THE PERSONAL DATA OF A COVERED USER COLLECTED THROUGH THE USE OF A WEBSITE, ONLINE SERVICE, ONLINE APPLICATION, MOBILE APPLICA- TION, OR CONNECTED DEVICE UNLESS AND TO THE EXTENT:
(A) THE COVERED USER IS TWELVE YEARS OF AGE OR YOUNGER AND PROCESSING IS PERMITTED UNDER 15 U.S.C. § 6502 AND ITS IMPLEMENTING REGULATIONS; OR
(B) THE COVERED USER IS THIRTEEN YEARS OF AGE OR OLDER AND PROCESSING IS STRICTLY NECESSARY FOR AN ACTIVITY SET FORTH IN SUBDIVISION TWO OF THIS SECTION, OR INFORMED CONSENT HAS BEEN OBTAINED AS SET FORTH IN SUBDIVISION THREE OF THIS SECTION.
So a lot of this bill depends upon whether a person is over or under the age of eighteen, or over or under the age of thirteen.
And that’s a problem.
How old are you?
The bill needs to know whether or not a person is 18 years old. And I don’t think the quartet will be satisfied with the way that alcohol websites determine whether someone is 21 years old.
Attorney General James and the others would presumably prefer that the social media companies verify ages with a government-issued ID such as a state driver’s license, a state identification card, or a national passport. This is how most entities verify ages when they have to satisfy legal requirements.
For some people, even some minors, this is not that much of a problem. Anyone who wants to drive in New York State must have a driver’s license, and you have to be at least 16 years old to get a driver’s license. Admittedly some people in the city never bother to get a driver’s license, but at some point these people will probably get a state ID card.
However, there are going to be some 17 year olds who don’t have a driver’s license, government ID or passport.
And some 16 year olds.
And once you look at younger people—15 year olds, 14 year olds, 13 year olds, 12 year olds—the chances of them having a government-issued identification document are much less.
What are these people supposed to do? Provide a birth certificate? And how will the social media companies know if the birth certificate is legitimate?
But there’s another way to determine ages—age estimation.
How old are you, part 2
As long-time readers of the Bredemarket blog know, I have struggled with the issue of age verification, especially for people who do not have driver’s licenses or other government identification. Age estimation in the absence of a government ID is still an inexact science, as even Yoti has stated.
Our technology is accurate for 6 to 12 year olds, with a mean absolute error (MAE) of 1.3 years, and of 1.4 years for 13 to 17 year olds. These are the two age ranges regulators focus upon to ensure that under 13s and 18s do not have access to age restricted goods and services.
So if a minor does not have a government ID, and the social media firm has to use age estimation to determine a minor’s age for purposes of the New York Child Data Protection Act, the following two scenarios are possible:
An 11 year old may be incorrectly allowed to give informed consent for purposes of the Act.
A 14 year old may be incorrectly denied the ability to give informed consent for purposes of the Act.
Is age estimation “good enough for government work”?
I constantly preach that firms should not adopt “me too” messaging. Ideally, a firm’s messaging should not copy its competitors, but should instead state why the firm is better than all others, and why all the other firms are worthless in comparison.
But when a firm differentiates itself, there is always a danger that the firm will forget one important thing: how will the customersreact to the firm’s differentiated messaging? Will the differentiation turn the customers off?
Trust me, it can happen.
A multinational’s great idea that backfired
Some time ago, I was working for a multinational firm that clearly differentiated itself from all of its competitors. This multinational had been around for some time and was known for its particular tone.
I’m not going to reveal the name of the particular multinational firm, or the tone it radiated.
The IBM illustrative example
But the tone used by that multinational was just as powerful as the tone IBM exuded in the mid-20th century.
In the 1950s and 1960s, “Big Blue” meant a particular style.
The men of IBM didn’t wear facial hair and wore only white shirts….IBM wanted to make sure they did not offend a prospect or a customer. Research had shown them that some people don’t like facial hair…so no facial hair. Research had also shown that people assume a degree of professionalism with a white shirt that may not be assumed if a person wore a blue or yellow shirt. So white shirts it is!
Let’s leave the theoretical example and return to the situation at my distinctive multinational.
Now the multinational that employed me long ago didn’t have a “blue suit-white shirt” dress code, but in other ways the multinational had a distinctive tone that radiated from the executive level down to the ranks of the worker bees like myself.
We all embodied this tone.
We spoke in this tone.
And our marketing messages also spoke in this tone, regardless of the market segment to which our marketers were speaking.
Even if the market segment had a very different tone than the one the multinational was projecting. (Imagine the Military Police selling the Vietnam War in Haight-Ashbury.)
By By S.Sgt. Albert R. Simpson. Department of Defense. Department of the Army. Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations. U.S. Army Audiovisual Center. – This tag does not indicate the copyright status of the attached work. A normal copyright tag is still required. See Commons:Licensing., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1111279
When my multinational sent its marketing collateral out to prospects who used a very different tone than that used by the multinational, the prospects hated it. The marketing department received multiple complaints from salespeople whose clients were repelled by the material.
One of my coworkers surveyed the negative campaign reaction with dismay. The coworker had joined the company after the marketing tone was adopted. My coworker asked a simple question: “What type of customer focus group testing was conducted before we used this tone on a marketing campaign?”
“We didn’t conduct any focus group testing,” my coworker was told. “We didn’t need any.”
In retrospect, I guess we did need to test the messaging before we delivered it.
Four ways to balance customer focus and a firm’s distinctive messaging
If you’ve been reading recent Bredemarket blog posts, you’re probably not surprised that this is turning into yet another blog post aboutcustomer focus. But how do you balance a firm’s distinctive differentiators with a focus on its customers?
Fourth, your messaging needs some smarts. Just because your prospect bought a refrigerator on Monday doesn’t mean that they’ll want a second refrigerator on Tuesday.
If you follow these and similar steps, then it (almost) doesn’t matter if your firm’s generic messaging is antithetical to the values of your prospects. Because your prospects won’t get generic messaging, but messaging that is focused for them.
No, not THAT type of engagement, although there are parallels between engagement with a person and engagement with content.
In the same way that content impressions can move a prospect to awareness, content engagement can move a prospect to consideration. And even if you don’t believe in the traditional funnel, it’s obviously a good idea to get prospects to engage with your content.
Morisette’s six-step strategy
Jessica Morisette of JM Virtual Solutions recently wrote a blog post entitled “Increase Instagram Engagement With This One-Hour Strategy.” Although I’m sure that she wouldn’t object if you spent 59 or 61 minutes (rather than an exact 60 minutes) on daily engagement, and she DEFINITELY wouldn’t mind if you took some of her techniques and applied them to social media platforms other than Instagram.
Personally, I started trying to put her engagement strategy in practice over the weekend, both on Instagram and (with some adaptation) on LinkedIn. Depending upon time, I may try to apply it on your favorite social platform.
Building engagement on Instagram involves creating a genuine connection with your audience. It’s not just about getting likes and comments; it’s about creating meaningful interactions that lead to brand loyalty and growth. To achieve this, you need a strategy that focuses on targeted accounts, not just random.
She then lists six steps to her suggested media engagement strategy. Now I could rip her off and reprint all six here, but then you wouldn’t read her post (which you should do).
So instead I’m going to briefly cover her step 5, engaging with your peers and community.
Skipping to step 5
After devoting time to particular portions of the Instagram platform, Morisette suggests that you start engagement with particular segments. One of those segments is peers and community.
Why?
Supporting others in your niche can encourage them to reciprocate.
I know that content creators are often perceived to be in competition with other content creators, but since each of us is targeting different ideal clients, that competition is less than you think. Since content creators are all in this together, there’s a clear benefit from us supporting each other.
In fact, Morisette believes that this mutual support is so important that she recommends that you engage with your peers and community BEFORE you engage with your ideal client (step 6).
Bredemarket 