Tag Archives: LinkedIn

Start Your Engines: Writing Your Non-Traditional Words

All too often, Bredemarket confines its writing discussions to the traditional ABCW (articles, blog posts, case studies, white papers) categories.

But what if your content needs are non-traditional and fall outside of the usual nice neat business writing categories?

From the 2023 Route 66 Cruisin’ Reunion, Saturday, September 16, 2023.

If you are an Inland Empire business who needs words, but not in the traditional “ABCW” (articles, blog posts, case studies, white papers) business types, Bredemarket will help you with your non-traditional writing needs.

Take a look at the examples I’ve provided below, and if these spark interest within you, authorize Bredemarket, Ontario California’s content marketing expert, to help your firm produce words that return results.

  • Email me at john.bredehoft@bredemarket.com.
  • Book a meeting with me at calendly.com/bredemarket. Be sure to fill out the information form so I can best help you. For example, if you’re an Inland Empire business requiring non-traditional content, fill out the form accordingly.
Example form from https://calendly.com/bredemarket/
Bredemarket logo

Here’s what I’m going to talk about in this post.

The traditional 22+ content categories

Sometimes I’m guilty of traditional thinking. Too traditional.

I won’t say a lot about this because I’ve said it before, but I’ve defined 22 fairly traditional categories of content that I (and Bredemarket) have created and can create.

22 traditional content types.

I won’t go into all 22 types again, especially since some of them are internal content rather than customer-facing content. But I’d like to highlight the “ABCW” four types that I mentioned at the beginning of this blog post, plus a couple of others.

Articles and blog posts

I’m lumping articles and blog posts together, because while some “experts” try to draw hard-and-fast distinctions between the two, they’re pretty much the same thing.

Whether it’s a blog post on your website, a post or article on LinkedIn, or even some extended text associated with an Instagram picture or a TikTok video, what you’re creating is some text that entertains, persuades, inspires, or educates your reader, or perhaps all four. You set the goal for the article or blog post, then tailor the content to meet the goal. (I’ll talk more about goals later.)

Case studies

From “How Bredemarket Can Help You Win Business,” available via this post.

Case studies show your readers how your solution was applied to someone else’s problem, and how your solution can benefit your prospects with similar problems.

Maybe your prospect is a city police agency that needs a tool to solve crimes, and your case study describes how your solution solved crimes in a similar city. Again, you set the goal for the case study, then tailor the content to meet the goal.

White papers

On the surface, white papers are informational, but when a company issues a white paper, the “information” that the white paper provides should gently guide the reader toward doing business with the company that issued the paper. Using the example above, you could write a white paper that outlines “Five Critical Elements for a Local Crime-Solving Solution.” By remarkable coincidence, your own solution happens to include all five of those critical elements. Again, you set the goal and tailor the content.

Briefs, data sheets, and literature sheets

One-page sheet for the Bredemarket 400 Short Writing Service. More information here.

Perhaps you need to provide handouts to your prospects that describe your product or service.

Regardless of whether you call these handouts briefs, data, sheets, literature sheets, or something else, they should at a minimum contain both “educate” and “persuade” elements—educate your prospects on the benefits of your product or service, and persuade your prospects to move closer to a sale (conversion).

Again, you set the goal and tailor the content.

Web page content

If your business has a web page, I hope that it has more words than “Under construction.” Whether you have imagery, video, audio, text, or all four on your web page, it needs to answer the questions that your prospects and customers have.

You know what I’m going to say here, but it’s still important. You set the goal and tailor the content.

But…what if your business needs content that doesn’t fall into these traditional business categories?

Non-traditional content: going to a car show

I went to a car show this weekend—specifically, this year’s Route 66 Cruisin’ Reunion in downtown Ontario, California. (Yes, I know that Route 66 actually passed three miles north of downtown Ontario, but work with me here.)

While some of the exhibitors were personal, some of them were businesses. As businesses, what was the major marketing collateral that they generated?

Not a blog post, or LinkedIn article, or any of the traditional business media collateral.

Their marketing tools were the cars themselves.

So perhaps you may assume that car show exhibitors don’t need textual content. Your assumption would be incorrect.

From https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Ed9bn7lmtzA

In addition to the car itself, this exhibitor included poster boards with words describing the car.

Another exhibitor did the same thing.

So while these car show exhibitors didn’t choose a traditional way to convey their words, they shared written text anyway.

Your non-traditional business communication needs

Maybe you don’t have a classic car. Maybe you don’t have a car at all. Do you need to share words with your prospects and customers anyway?

Now I don’t know your business communication needs. You do. But I can guess a few things.

  1. Do you need to tell your clients/potential clients why you do what you do?
  2. Do you need to tell them how you do it?
  3. And last but not least, do you need to tell them what you do?

I know that this may seem like an unusual order to you. Why not start with what you do?

Because your customers don’t care about what you do. Your customers care about themselves.

If you keep the focus on your customers, the answer to the “why” question will induce your customers to care about you, because it shows how you can solve their problems.

Let’s illustrate this.

Why and how Bredemarket creates non-traditional content

You may be asking why I create content in the first place. There are countless content creators, both human and non-human. Why turn to me when OpenAI and its bot buddies are a lot cheaper and faster?

Normally I include my recent professional picture, but I have been writing since my college days (on a typewriter back then).

The simple answer is that I am obsessed with writing, and in this era of self-description, I self-describe as a “you can pry my keyboard out of my cold dead hands” type. (It used to be a typewriter, but let’s stick to this millennium.) And with my many years of personal and professional writing, I’ve honed my ability to take concepts and make them meaningful to readers.

Which brings me to how Bredemarket works.

  1. Bredemarket’s service is independent of content type. I don’t have a “Bredemarket blog writing service” or “Bredemarket data sheet writing service” or “Bredemarket case study writing service.” My services are based on word length, not content type, with my most popular service targeted to customers who need between 400 and 600 words of text. From this perspective, I don’t care if you want the words to appear on your website or your social media channel or a paper flyer or a sign next to your car or a really really long banner towed behind an airplane. (Read about the Bredemarket 400 Short Writing Service here.)
  2. Before I write a thing, I ask your some questions. It won’t surprise you to learn that my first questions to you are why, how, and what. I then move on to questions about your goal for the content, the benefits of your solution, the target audience for your solution, and many additional questions. (Read about the Six Questions Your Content Creator Should Ask You here.)
  3. Once the questions are out of the way, content creation is collaborative and iterative. I create a draft, you review it, and we repeat. The Bredemarket 400 service includes two review cycles; longer content needs include three review cycles. The goal is to ensure that both of us are happy with the final product.

Bredemarket’s process applies regardless of the specific content type, so I should be able to support whatever content you need, whether it’s traditional or non-traditional.

Can I help you?

And as an added bonus, here are some additional images from this weekend’s Cruisin’ Reunion. Enjoy.

From https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SboKOAmL5w

Product Marketers vs. Product Managers vs. Content Marketers

I’ve performed product marketing since 2015 (arguably earlier), and I performed that other similar-sounding role, product management, from 2000 to 2009. The two roles certainly have similarities such as customer focus, but they may be different.

Or may not. There’s no standard job description for a product marketer, and product marketing needs vary between companies.

From https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/whats-the-difference-between-a-product-manager-and-a-product-marketing-manager/

I say more about this, and about the responsibilities shown in the survey above (including the fact that the majority of product marketers are also content marketers), in a LinkedIn post (not an article) that I published on my personal profile today.

From https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jbredehoft_productmarketing-productmarketingmanager-activity-7106038118264307712-spfw/

Is Your Company Ignoring Your Prospects?

Are you locking your prospects out?

Designed by Freepik.

Ignoring your prospects is NOT a winning business strategy. But a lot of companies do it anyway by not communicating regularly with their prospects.

If you ignore your prospects, your prospects will ignore you.

Meetings and money, via a third party

Of my three Bredemarket meetings (so far) today, the second was the most promising.

A person at a large company needs consulting services from me. All we need to do is work out the mechanics. The large company relies on a third party to manage its indpendent contractor relationships, including onboarding, time cards, and payments for hourly work. I wanted to learn about the third party, but I ran into walls when seeking current information about the firm.

The third party’s website is static

The third party’s website talks about its services, some unique aspects about the business, the story of its founder (a fascinating story), its technology partners, and its call to action. It provides ALMOST everything…with the exception of CURRENT information.

Does your company website look like http://www.dolekemp96.org/main.htm?
  • No press releases from the third party.
  • No links to news articles that mention the third party.
  • Not even a blog.

Basically if you want CURRENT information about the company…

…you get crickets.

African field cricket, Gryllus bimaculatus. By Arpingstone – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=620363

Not literally, but you know what I mean.

Which makes me wonder—is the third party doing anything NOW? Or was all of the existing content set up when the company was founded a decade ago?

If text like this is on your home page, you have a problem. From https://serverfault.com/questions/65952/objective-speed-comparison-of-windows-7-vs-windows-xp, which acknowledges that this text is over 13 years old. Does your site have old text without such an acknowledgement?

Luckily for me, I knew where to find current information on the company. Since the company is a B2B provider, I assumed that the company has a LinkedIn page. And I was right. But…

The third party’s LinkedIn page is also static

As you probably know, company LinkedIn pages have several subpages. The “About” supage talks about the third party company’s services, and the “People” subpage links to the profiles of the company’s employees, including the founder. So I went to the “Posts” subpage for the third party…

…and found crickets.

From https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSW6IFt8OpQ

Not literally, but you know what I mean.

In nearly a decade of existence, the company has NEVER written a LinkedIn post to reach out to its prospects or customers.

Ignoring your prospects

As I’ve said before, companies that refuse to generate current content in the form of blog posts or social media posts make it appear that your company is no longer an ongoing, viable concern.

By Yintan at English Wikipedia, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=63631702

And this is so easy to fix.

Pay attention to your prospects by providing current content.

If you ignore your prospects, your prospects will ignore you.

Are you ready to stop ignoring your prospects?

If you need help creating content for your blog, your social media platforms, or your website, Bredemarket can help you regain credibility with your prospects and customers.

Authorize Bredemarket, Ontario California’s content marketing expert, to help your firm produce words that return results.

Bredemarket logo

Creating a Business Page on Facebook for Your Inland Empire Company

There are Inland Empire companies that have an online presence, and companies that don’t.

Yes, the Ontario Convention Center has an online presence, on the web and elsewhere. Picture by Mack Male – originally posted to Flickr as Ontario Convention Center, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9512928

If your Inland Empire company doesn’t have an online presence, one quick way to create one is to create a business page on Facebook.

This post outlines the benefits of establishing an online presence via a Facebook business page. It also provides four examples of Facebook business pages. Finally, the post addresses the thorny question of creating content for your Facebook business page.

Why Faceboook may be the best online presence for your business

For the first time in years, I attended an Ontario IDEA Exchange meeting at AmPac Business Capital on Tuesday afternoon. There was a mixture of attendees: some who had established several businesses, some like me who had run one business for some time, and a few who were just starting out in business.

The ones who were starting out were still trying to figure out all the things you need to do to start a business: figuring out why the business exists in the first place, getting the appropriate business licenses (and in some cases professional licenses), printing business cards (or creating the online equivalent), setting up SOME kind of way to track prospects and customers…and establishing an online presence.

Now some businesses choose to establish their online presence by creating a website.

I believe that this is the best way to establish an online presence since you have more control over the content. Plus, there are several alternative ways to create a business website (I use WordPress, but you can use SquareSpace, Wix, or any of several other website builders).

But even the simplest website can involve a lot of complexity—bredemarket.com currently has 57 pages, not counting tag pages and individual blog post pages.

For many small businesses, it may be much easier to create a Facebook business page then to create an entire website.

  • Facebook business pages are free. (Well, unless you run ads.)
  • Facebook business pages are easy to create.
  • Facebook business pages potentially reach billions of people, including your prospects and customers.

Creating a Facebook business page

So how do you create a Facebook business page?

There’s no need for me to document all of that in detail, since many have already done so.

Starting with Facebook itself.

As long as you have a personal Facebook profile, and as long as you can provide basic information about your business (category, address, areas serviced, email, phone number, website, hours, etc.), you can create a Facebook page from your laptop or desktop computer by following these steps:

  1. From the Pages section, click Create new Page.
  2. Add your Page name and category.
  3. Add your Page’s bio and click Create.
  4. (Optional) Add information, such as Contact, Location and Hours, and click Next.
  5. (Optional) Add profile and cover photos, and edit the action button, and click Next.
  6. (Optional) Invite friends to connect with your Page, and click Next.
  7. Click Done.
From https://www.facebook.com/business/help/473994396650734?id=939256796236247

Don’t worry if you don’t have all the optional items, such as a page cover picture. You can add them later. This will get you going.

Other guides to creating Facebook business pages are available from Buffer (with pictures), Hootsuite (with pictures). Sprout Social (with pictures), and a number of other sources.

But before you create YOUR Facebook business page, let me show you four varied examples of EXISTING Facebook business pages.

Four examples of Facebook business pages

Let’s take a look at some pages that already exist. Perhaps one or more of these will give you ideas for your own page.

The artist page (Paso Artis)

Paso Artis is a European business whose proprietor is a painter who sells her paintings.

From https://www.facebook.com/paso.artis/about

The menu options at the bottom of the picture above (some of which cannot be seen) illustrate some of the elements you can include in a Facebook page. Here are just a few of the page elements that Paso Artis uses:

  • Posts. This is the equivalent of a blog on a website, and allows you to post text, images, videos, and other types of content.
  • About. This is where you provide contact and other basic information about your business.
  • Shop. Facebook allows you to include a shop, which Paso Artis uses to sell her paintings.
From https://www.facebook.com/paso.artis/shop_tab
  • Photos. As you can imagine for an artist’s page, photos of the artwork are essential.

The shirtmaker page (Shirts by Kaytie)

(UPDATE 10/20/2023: Because Shirts by Kaytie is sadly no longer in business, I have removed the, um, live links to her Facebook page.)

Let’s leave Europe and go to Illinois where we find another artist, but her work is not displayed on paintings, but on shirts. Here is the Shirts by Kaytie Facebook page.

From https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100095322638655

You’ll notice that Shirts by Kaytie has a different menu item order (and different menu items) than Paso Artis. For example, Shirts by Kaytie doesn’t have a Facebook “shop” element; you need to contact her directly to purchase items.

But Shirts by Kaytie certainly has photos.

From https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100095322638655&sk=photos

The marketer/writer page (Bredemarket)

Enough of such exotic locations as Europe and Illinois. Let’s head to California’s Inland Empire and look at my favorite marketing/writing services Facebook page, the Bredemarket Facebook page.

From https://www.facebook.com/Bredemarket/

I’d like to point out two things here.

  • First, Bredemarket (unlike Paso Artis and Shirts by Kaytie) provides services rather than tangible products. Therefore, I chose to include a “Services” element as part of my Facebook page.
From https://www.facebook.com/Bredemarket/services

Second, Bredemarket has chosen to implement Facebook’s “groups” feature. In Bredemarket’s case, there are three separate groups that focus on various aspects of Bredemarket’s business. Inland Empire businesses can read the content in the Bredemarket Inland Empire B2B Services group and not get bogged down in out-of-area identity discussions about the change from FRVT to FRTE. (They’re missing out.)

From https://www.facebook.com/Bredemarket/groups

The local technology champion page (Startempire Wire)

I saved the Startempire Wire Facebook page for last because it makes terrific use of Facebook’s capabilities.

From https://www.facebook.com/startempirewire

By the way, if you are an Inland Empire business—especially an Inland Empire startup technology business—and you have never heard of Startempire Wire, STOP READING MY POST and go follow Startempire Wire’s Facebook page NOW. Startempire Wire is THE news source for Inland Empire startup tech information, and is a strong champion of the IE tech community.

So what does Startempire Wire’s Facebook page offer? Posts, photos, weekly videos, and the “Inland Empire Startup Scene” group. All of the content is jam-packed with information.

Facebook pages are essential to these firms’ strategies

Now in some cases the Facebook pages are only part of the online presence for these firms. Both Bredemarket and Startempire Wire have their own web pages, and both firms are also active on other online properties such as LinkedIn. (Bredemarket is almost everywhere, but not on Snapchat.) But Facebook is an essential part of the outreach for all four of these firms, allowing them to reach prospects and clients who are only on Facebook and nowhere else.

Perhaps a Facebook page is a perfect solution for YOUR firm’s online presence.

Let’s talk about content

But creating a Facebook page is not enough.

You need to populate it with content, such as images, videos…and posts.

And if your Facebook page doesn’t have any content, it’s useless to your prospects. As I’ve preached for years, an empty page makes your prospects and customers question whether you exist.

Now I’m not saying that you HAVE to update your Facebook page daily, but it’s a good idea to add new content at least once a month.

But what if you aren’t a writer, or don’t have time to write? Do you have to resort to ChatGPT?

Heavens no. (I’ll say more about that later.)

Well, online content creation is where Bredemarket comes in. I help firms create blog posts, Facebook posts, LinkedIn articles, case studies, white papers, and other content (22 different types of content at last count).

Does your product (or company) need these 22 content types?

Let me help you populate your Facebook page (or other online content).

Authorize Bredemarket, Ontario California’s content marketing expert, to help your firm produce words that return results.

Bredemarket logo

Bredemarket Work Samples, the Video Edition

I can’t share work samples that I created for Bredemarket clients, because they are ghostwritten “works for hire” that are not publicly attributed to Bredemarket.

(For the same reason, I can’t share most work samples that I created for my previous employers.)

But I CAN share work samples that I created for…Bredemarket.

The video containing this image can be found on various Bredemarket properties.

Actually, you can search through the entire Bredemarket website and social media outlets and find them.

Or you can just watch the video below, which summarizes everything.

Bredemarket Work Samples, August 2023.

How Bredemarket Works

Bredemarket logo

(Updated question count 10/23/2023)

I’m stealing an idea from Matthew Mace and adapting it to explain how Bredemarket works.

What am I stealing from Matthew Mace?

Matthew Mace is a freelance content writer who recently posted the following on LinkedIn:

Do you need a freelance content writer but don’t know what to expect?

I created a “work with me” pdf that explains what I do and how I can help you.

From https://www.linkedin.com/posts/matthewmace-contentmarketing_cycling-running-wellness-activity-7094675414727450624-8U_Y/

His post then explains what is included in his “work with me” PDF. If you’d like his PDF, send him a message via his LinkedIn profile.

But what if I want to know how to work with Bredemarket?

Glad you asked.

After reading Mace’s LinkedIn post, I realized that I have a bunch of different online sources that explain how to work with Bredemarket, but they’re scattered all over the place. This post groups them all the “how to work with Bredemarket” content together, following an outline similar (yet slightly different) to Mace’s.

And no, it’s not a stand-alone PDF, but as you read the content below you’ll discover two stand-alone PDFs that address critical portions of the process.

Question 1: Why would I work with Bredemarket?

As you’ll see below, “why” is a very important question, even more important than “how.” Here are some reasons to work with Bredemarket.

By Federal Bureau of Investigation – https://washingtonian.com/2016/11/24/the-fbi-opened-its-crime-lab-here-in-dc-back-in-1932, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=128508441
  • You require the words to communicate the benefits of your identity/biometrics product/service. I offer 29 years of experience in the identity/biometrics industry and am a biometric content marketing expert and an identity content marketing expert. I have created multiple types of content (see below) to share critical points about identity/biometrics offerings.
  • You require the words to communicate the benefits of your technology product/service. I have also created multiple types of content to share critical points about technology offerings.
  • You require the words to communicate the benefits of a product/service you provide to California’s Inland Empire. I’ve lived in the Inland Empire for…well, for more than 29 years. I know the area—its past, its present, and its future.
  • You require one of the following types of content. Blogs, case studies / testimonials, data sheets, e-books, proposals, social media posts / Xs (or whatever tweets are called today), white papers, or anything. I’ve done these for others and can do it for you.

Question 2: Why WOULDN’T I work with Bredemarket?

This question is just as important as the prior one. If you need the following, you WON’T want to work with Bredemarket.

  • You require high quality graphics. Sorry, that’s not me.
I did not draw this myself. Originally created by Jleedev using Inkscape and GIMP. Redrawn as SVG by Ben Liblit using Inkscape. – Own work, Public Domain, link.
  • You are based outside of the United States. Foreign laws and exchange rates make my brain hurt, so I only pursue business domestically. But depending upon where you are, I may be able to recommend a content marketer for you.

Question 3: What are Bredemarket’s most popular packages? How much do they cost?

Here are the three most common packages that Bredemarket offers.

By Staff Sgt. Michael L. Casteel – [1], Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2407244

Note that these are the standard packages. If your needs are different, I can adapt them, or charge you an hourly rate if the need is not well defined. (But as you will see below, I try to work with you at the outset to define the project.)

If you follow the link above for your desired package and download the first brochure on each page, you’ll get a description of the appropriate service. The pricing is at the bottom of each brochure.

Each brochure also explains how I kick off a project, but the procedure is fairly common for each package.

Question 4: What are Bredemarket’s working practices?

When I work with a client, I hold a kickoff to make sure that we have a common understanding at the beginning of the project.

The first seven questions that we address are critical. In fact, I wrote an e-book that addresses these seven questions alone.

  1. Why?
  2. How?
  3. What?
  4. Goal?
  5. Benefits?
  6. Target Audience?
  7. Emotions?
Go to https://bredemarket.com/2023/10/22/seven-questions-your-content-creator-should-ask-you-the-e-book-version/ to download this e-book.

But that’s not all that we address in the kickoff. There are some other lower-level questions that I ask you (such as the long and short form of your company name).

Once we have defined the project, I iteratively provide draft copy and you iteratively review it. The number and length of review cycles varies depending upon the content length and your needs. For example, I use up to two review cycles of up to three days each for short content.

Eventually I provide the final copy, you publish it and pay me, and both of us are happy.

Question 5: What about samples and testimonials?

Because I usually function as a ghostwriter, I cannot publicly provide samples or identity my clients. But I’ve written yet another e-book that anonymously describes some sample projects that I’ve performed for clients, including a testimonial from one of them.

Go to https://bredemarket.com/2023/04/16/four-mini-case-studies-for-one-inland-empire-business-my-own/ to download this e-book.

Question 6: What are the next steps to work with Bredemarket?

If you believe that I can help you create the content your firm needs, let’s talk.

Or if Matthew Mace’s content services better fit your needs, use him.

Three Key Ways to Receive Bredemarket Information

Are you considering contracting with a marketing and writing service?

Would you like to know more about Bredemarket’s marketing and writing services to provide the right words for identity/biometrics, technology, and local B2B firms?

Would you like multiple options to learn about Bredemarket?

This post is ONLY intended for people who want to stay up-to-date with information from Bredemarket. If you have no such interest, you can skip reading this post and I’ll “give a couple of minutes back to you.”

There are a number of ways to get the latest Bredemarket information, but these three are probably the most important.

Bredemarket blog

To subscribe to the Bredemarket blog and get the latest information directly from Bredemarket:

The Bredemarket blog contains over 400 posts on marketing, writing, identity and biometrics, technology, and California’s Inland Empire. It also lets you know how you can use Bredemarket’s marketing and writing services for your company.

LinkedIn Bredemarket page

To subscribe to the LinkedIn page and see the latest content from Bredemarket, and special content from Bredemarket’s market-oriented LinkedIn pages:

I’ve found LinkedIn to be a valuable source of information, and much of the third-party information I find on LinkedIn is reshared on the Bredemarket LinkedIn page and its market-oriented “showcase” pages on identity, technology, and local business. (You can follow those three pages also.)

Bredemarket mailing list

To subscribe to the mailing list and receive special private content in advance of everyone else:

I’m revitalizing the mailing list to let those with a keen interest in Bredemarket know about my future plans.

Updates, updates, updates, updates…

If I hired myself to update the Bredemarket website, I’d be employed full time.

Early June website updates

My “opportunity” that allowed me to service identity clients again necessitated several changes to the website, which I documented in a June 1 post entitled “Updates, updates, updates…“

Then I had to return to this website to make some hurried updates, since my April 2022 prohibition on taking certain types of work is no longer in effect as of June 2023. Hence, my home page, my “What I Do” page, and (obviously) my identity page are all corrected.

From https://bredemarket.com/2023/06/01/updates-updates-updates/

Basically, I had gone through great trouble to document that Bredemarket would NOT take identity work, so I had to reverse a lot of pages to say that Bredemarket WOULD take identity work.

I may have found a few additional pages after June 1, but eventually I reached the point where everything on the Bredemarket website was completely and totally updated, and I wouldn’t have to perform any other changes.

You can predict where this is going.

Who I…was

Today it occurred to me that some of the readers of the LinkedIn Bredemarket page may not know the person behind Bredemarket, so I took the opportunity to share Bredemarket’s “Who I Am” web page on the LinkedIn page.

Only then did I read what the page actually said.

So THAT page was also updated (updates in red).

From https://bredemarket.com/who-i-am/ as of August 8, 1:35 pm PDT. Subject to change.

So yes, this biometric content marketing expert/identity content marketing expert IS available for your content marketing needs. If you’re interested in receiving my help with your identity written content, contact me.

To be continued, probably…

The Difference Between Identity Factors and Identity Modalities

(Part of the biometric product marketing expert series)

I know that I’m the guy who likes to say that it’s all semantics. After all, I’m the person who has referred to five-page long documents as “battlecards.”

But sometimes the semantics are critically important. Take the terms “factors” and “modalities.” On the surface they sound similar, but in practice there is an extremely important difference between factors of authentication and modalities of authentication. Let’s discuss.

What is a factor?

To answer the question “what is a factor,” let me steal from something I wrote back in 2021 called “The five authentication factors.”

Something You Know. Think “password.” And no, passwords aren’t dead. But the use of your mother’s maiden name as an authentication factor is hopefully decreasing.

Something You Have. I’ve spent much of the last ten years working with this factor, primarily in the form of driver’s licenses. (Yes, MorphoTrak proposed driver’s license systems. No, they eventually stopped doing so. But obviously IDEMIA North America, the former MorphoTrust, has implemented a number of driver’s license systems.) But there are other examples, such as hardware or software tokens.

Something You Are. I’ve spent…a long time with this factor, since this is the factor that includes biometrics modalities (finger, face, iris, DNA, voice, vein, etc.). It also includes behavioral biometrics, provided that they are truly behavioral and relatively static.

Something You Do. The Cybersecurity Man chose to explain this in a non-behavioral fashion, such as using swiping patterns to unlock a device. This is different from something such as gait recognition, which supposedly remains constant and is thus classified as behavioral biometrics.

Somewhere You Are. This is an emerging factor, as smartphones become more and more prevalent and locations are therefore easier to capture. Even then, however, precision isn’t always as good as we want it to be. For example, when you and a few hundred of your closest friends have illegally entered the U.S. Capitol, you can’t use geolocation alone to determine who exactly is in Speaker Pelosi’s office.

From https://bredemarket.com/2021/03/02/the-five-authentication-factors/

(By the way, if you search the series of tubes for reading material on authentication factors, you’ll find a lot of references to only three authentication factors, including references from some very respectable sources. Those sources are only 60% right, since they leave off the final two factors I listed above. It’s five factors of authentication, folks. Maybe.)

The one striking thing about the five factors is that while they can all be used to authenticate (and verify) identities, they are inherently different from one another. The ridges of my fingerprint bear no relation to my 16 character password, nor do they bear any relation to my driver’s license. These differences are critical, as we shall see.

What is a modality?

In identity usage, a modality refers to different variations of the same factor. This is most commonly used with the “something you are” (biometric) factor, but it doesn’t have to be.

Biometric modalities

The identity company Aware, which offers multiple biometric solutions, spent some time discussing several different biometric modalities.

[M]any businesses and individuals (are adopting) biometric authentication as it been established as the most secure authentication method surpassing passwords and pins. There are many modalities of biometric authentication to pick from, but which method is the best?  

From https://www.aware.com/blog-which-biometric-authentication-method-is-the-best/

After looking at fingerprints, faces, voices, and irises, Aware basically answered its “best” question by concluding “it depends.” Different modalities have their own strengths and weaknesses, depending upon the use case. (If you wear thick gloves as part of your daily work, forget about fingerprints.)

ID R&D goes a step further and argues that it’s best to use multimodal biometrics, in which the two biometrics are face and voice. (By an amazing coincidence, ID R&D offers face and voice solutions.)

And there are many other biometric modalities.

From Sandeep Kumar, A. Sony, Rahul Hooda, Yashpal Singh, in Journal of Advances and Scholarly Researches in Allied Education | Multidisciplinary Academic Research, “Multimodal Biometric Authentication System for Automatic Certificate Generation.”

Non-biometric modalities

But the word “modalities” is not reserved for biometrics alone. The scientific paper “Multimodal User Authentication in Smart Environments: Survey of User Attitudes,” just released in May, includes this image that lists various modalities. As you can see, two of the modalities are not like the others.

From Aloba, Aishat & Morrison-Smith, Sarah & Richlen, Aaliyah & Suarez, Kimberly & Chen, Yu-Peng & Ruiz, Jaime & Anthony, Lisa. (2023). Multimodal User Authentication in Smart Environments: Survey of User Attitudes. Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
  • The three modalities in the middle—face, voice, and fingerprint—are all clearly biometric “something you are” modalities.
  • But the modality on the left, “Make a body movement in front of the camera,” is not a biometric modality (despite its reference to the body), but is an example of “something you do.”
  • Passwords, of course, are “something you know.”

In fact, each authentication factor has multiple modalities.

  • For example, a few of the modalities associated with “something you have” include driver’s licenses, passports, hardware tokens, and even smartphones.

Why multifactor is (usually) more robust than multimodal

Modalities within a single authentication factor are more closely related than modalities within multiple authentication factors. As I mentioned above when talking about factors, there is no relationship between my fingerprint, my password, and my driver’s license. However, there is SOME relationship between my driver’s license and my passport, since the two share some common information such as my legal name and my date of birth.

What does this mean?

  • If I’ve fraudulently created a fake driver’s license in your name, I already have some of the information that I need to create a fake passport in your name.
  • If I’ve fraudulently created a fake iris, there’s a chance that I might already have some of the information that I need to create a fake face.
  • However, if I’ve bought your Coinbase password on the dark web, that doesn’t necessarily mean that I was able to also buy your passport information on the dark web (although it is possible).

Therefore, while multimodal authentication is better tha unimodal authentication, multifactor authentication is usually better still (unless, as Incode Technologies notes, one of the factors is really, really weak).

Can an identity content marketing expert help you navigate these issues?

As you can see, you need to be very careful when writing about modalities and factors.

You need a biometric content marketing expert who has worked with many of these modalities.

Actually, you need an identity content marketing expert who has worked with many of these factors.

So if you are with an identity company and need to write a blog post, LinkedIn article, white paper, or other piece of content that touches on multifactor and multimodal issues, why not engage with Bredemarket to help you out?

If you’re interested in receiving my help with your identity written content, contact me.

Yeah, I Wrote a Bredemarket LinkedIn Article About…Company LinkedIn Articles

Stump the Experts at WWDC 2010
Stefan Haubold • CC BY-SA 3.0

One way for your firm to publicize its offerings is through company LinkedIn articles. My LinkedIn article, written by my company Bredemarket, discusses…well, company LinkedIn articles. It also discusses:

  • Why you should write LinkedIn articles.
  • Why companies should write LinkedIn articles under their own names.
  • How to create LinkedIn articles.
  • Finally, who can write your LinkedIn articles. (I have a suggestion.)

To read the LinkedIn article, visit https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-your-company-should-write-linkedin-articles-bredemarket