Identity/biometrics/technology marketing and writing services
Putting “data scraping” at the top of your LinkedIn profile may not be the plus that you think it is.
Especially since so many jurisdictions enforce consent requirements.
Even if the data is public (say, on a Facebook profile), that doesn’t mean that YOU can have it.
It was Sunday afternoon, and I was reading my LinkedIn feed. (Yes, I know; the first step is admitting you have a problem.)
Except that I was seeing stuff that was weeks old. Posts about “upcoming” trade shows that already took place. News about the “upcoming” Prism Project deepfake report that was released long ago.
I don’t know why LinkedIn’s algorithm thinks I need to read ancient history. What’s next…reports that Enron may be a fraud?
So I decided to bypass the algorithm and access the tried and true chronological feed. You know, the way things used to work before we supposedly got “smart.”
(As an aside, I remember when FriendFeed would AUTOMATICALLY update the chronological feed when new content was posted. The way that the pitchforks were raised, you would have thought the world ended. As it turned out, the world wouldn’t end until August 10, 2009…or April 10, 2015. But I digress.)
Anyway, I went to the feed to look for the switch to swap to chronological…but could find no such switch.
So I checked Google Gemini, and discovered that the “Most Recent” feed switch was buried in the Settings. For mobile LinkedIn users, it was in the “Account preferences” section, in the “Feed preferences.”
Except that it wasn’t.
“Feed preferences” only governed display or non-display of political content. The option below “Feed preferences,” “Preferred feed view,” was the one I wanted.
Color me conspiratorial, but I think everyone in the Really Big Bunch—Microsoft (LinkedIn), Meta (Facebook), and the others—likes to play “Whack a Mole” with the location of the chronological feed setting so that we give up and stick with the algorithmic feed of The Things We Are Supposed To See.
So the instructions here, written on June 22, 2025, may be invalid on June 22, 2026. Or July 22, 2025. Or June 23, 2025.
But for this moment I have the chronological feed set on LinkedIn, and since it takes effort to change it back, I don’t know when I will.
When I returned to LinkedIn to share a LinkedIn version of this post, my preferred feed view had been reset to “most relevant.”
(Imagen 4)
Last Friday I shared my beef with the so-called LinkedIn “experts” and their championing of generic pablum.
“The ideal personal communication is this: ‘I am thrilled and excited to announce my CJIS certification!’”
This drivel is rooted in the idea that LinkedIn is a business network…and anything else is just “Facebook.”
Oddly enough, my Bredemarket consulting blog gets much more traffic from Facebook than it does from LinkedIn.
It appears that Facebook users are more willing to click on links (and leave the walled garden).
Perhaps that’s not “businesslike” on LinkedIn.
Therefore, despite my issues with the Metabot at times, I’m paying more attention to Facebook these days.
And if Facebook users pay more attention to Bredemarket than LinkedIn users…well, I won’t impede on the LinkedIn users as they perform thrilling and exciting things.
By the way, I probably won’t post an anti-LinkedIn “experts” diatribe on the Bredemarket blog next Friday…
(Imagen 4)
I spend a lot of time on LinkedIn and therefore endure the regular assault from the so-called LinkedIn “experts.”
You know them.
But that’s not the worst thing they say.
When they’re not commanding you to avoid the em dash, the LinkedIn “experts” remind us that LinkedIn is a professional network. And that our communications must be professional.
The ideal personal communication is this: “I am thrilled and excited to announce my CJIS certification!”
The ideal business communication is this:
Yes, the “experts” wish that businesses said nothing at all. But if they do say something, a statement like this optimizes outcomes: “WidgetCorp is dedicated to bettering the technology ecosystem.”
Such a statement is especially effective if all your competitors are saying the same thing. This unity of messaging positions you as an industry leader.
Which enables you to…argh, I can’t do this any more. I am hating myself more and more with each word I type. Can I throw up now? This is emotionally painful.
Derek Hughes just sent me an email that describes this generic pablum. It read, in part:
“Everything reads like it was written by a robot on decaf.
“Same recycled tips. Same recycled tone. Somehow, it’s all… grey.”
If your company wants conversions—and I assume that you do—avoid the generic pablum and say something.
This will bring your hungry people (target audience) to you.
And for the prospects that despise humanness and glory in generic pablum…if their focus is elsewhere, your focus won’t impede. Let them roam in the distance.
(Imagen 4)
If you are a jobseeker on LinkedIn, you have probably seen people claim to be recruiters from well-known companies, when in truth they are nothing of the kind.
Faking your employer has existed for a long time. Just ask the Delaware State Police, who for some reason isn’t keen on people who impersonate police officers.
“[A] 23-year-old man from Laurel, Delaware…reported that he had been driving eastbound on Nine Foot Road, east of Laurel Road, when a white Dodge Magnum with Arizona registration pulled behind him and activated flashing red and blue lights. As the victim began to pull over, the Dodge passed him and continued driving.”
Because Arizona police officers patrol Delaware all the time.
The 23 year old was rightfully concerned, called 911, reported the incident, and described the vehicle. But that wasn’t the end of it.
“Shortly after, the driver of the Dodge pulled up next to the victim and verbally confronted him. The victim did not engage, and the suspect eventually fled the scene.”
After an investigation, the Delaware State Police arrested Blayden Rose of Selbyville, Delaware, for impersonating a police officer.
Rose may or may not be a handyman, and his connection to Arizona is unknown. But at least in Delaware, flashing lights are generally prohibited on non-emergency vehicles.
Not sure if Rose can get off on a technicality (“I wasn’t claiming to be a cop, I was just doing a strobe show”), but it reminds us that we have to trust, but verify.
(Imagen 4)
As a follow-up to my first post on this topic, look at the Guardian’s summary article, “Will AI wipe out the first rung of the career ladder?”
The Guardian cites several sources:
Read the entire article here.
I’m moving in a different direction on social media. Well, personal social media anyway.
There are multiple schools of thought about whether small companies with well-known leaders should share content on their company platforms or their personal social media platforms.
Obviously, most companies and company heads adopt a “do both” tactic. Maybe the company head reshares company posts. Or maybe the company reshares company head posts.
Or they do something that John Bredehoft and Bredemarket have done in the past: share the same content on both the company and the personal channels.
I might not do that any more.
The rationale behind sharing company posts on your personal channels is that your personal friends like you and will engage with your company posts.
But this rationale ignores one very pertinent fact: most of my friends have NO interest in identity, biometrics, cybersecurity, or related technologies.
Why would they engage with such content if it doesn’t interest them?
So on Monday afternoon I intentionally conducted an experiment on my personal Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn accounts, where together I have a combined 3,396 connections. My Monday afternoon identity/biometric and product marketing-related content received a total of 9 engagements…and that’s counting the Instagram user who requested “Can u share it @canadian.icon”).
Even acccounting for the three algorithms involved…that’s low.
And it…um, prompted me to ask myself a “why” question.
Good question.
So for now I’m “moving in a different direction” (a few of you know where THAT phrase originated) and not bothering to share Bredemarket content on my personal feeds. At least for now.
In my case, my high school friends, church friends, and even some of my former coworkers (who left the identity/biometric industry years ago) are NOT Bredemarket’s hungry people. So I’ll spare them the parade of wildebeests, wombats, and iguanas.
It’s all for you.
A lot of U.S. identity, biometric, and technology marketers like baseball. But some of you don’t know about the time that Paul Olden asked losing Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda a now-infamous question, “What’s your opinion of [Dave] Kingman’s performance?” (Lasorda’s response—edited—can be heard here.)
(Incidentally, while the picture of Lasorda looks realistic, it is not. Imagen 4 generated it.)
But any of us who write online worry about our own performance, whether we publicly admit it or not.
Take Becca Chambers, who like the rest of us wants to perform well, but observed:
“There’s a direct inverse relationship between how much time I spend on a post and how well it performs.”
It’s happened to Becca, it’s happened to me, and it’s probably happened to you. Chances are that this post and its social reshares will NOT reach tens of thousands of views, but my trivial observations about silly stuff will.
For me, these random posts delivered big numbers.
But in the end, do impressions matter? I constantly remind myself not to chase impressions, and to that end offered this comment on Chambers’ post:
“Depends upon how you measure “performance.”
“If you measure performance based solely on impressions, then you can realize great performance by random succinct thoughts on ghosting or the em dash or whatever.
“But if you measure performance by your paying consulting client saying that they liked your post on an obscure topic that only you and the client care about…then say what you need to say to your hungry people (target audience) and don’t worry about getting 20,000 impressions or 500 likes.”
And if we need any confirmation about the temporary nature of impressions, let’s look at Dave Kingman’s performance for the Chicago Cubs on May 14, 1978. “Three homers, 8 RBI, 3 runs, 4 hits, 1 walk, 13 Total bases.” Plus an uncountable number of expletives from manager Lasorda.
By 1981 Kingman was a New York Met.
So how do you create content that truly matters to people who will buy from you? By asking yourself some important questions and then developing the content.
And if you’re an identity, biometric, or technology firm that needs help to get content out now (rather than never), talk to Bredemarket. Not about bridges, but about your prospects. Book a free meeting: https://bredemarket.com/cpa/
In a recent Instagram post, Maxwell Finn wrote:
“People don’t buy solutions…they buy escape routes.”
If you apply the “people buy escape routes” thinking, what does Bredemarket offer?
I guess in Bredemarket’s case, I sell an escape from nothingness.
My current clients realize the importance of a consistent presence, even without my help. They’re always reminding prospects of the benefits of their solutions.
Some of my former clients and non-clients never grasped that importance.
That’s why they are former clients and non-clients; they didn’t need me, or anyone else. One last blogged in February…February 2024. Wonder how many new prospects found THAT company today?
If you don’t want to escape the fate of anonymity, save time and stop reading here. If you want to escape this, read here…and better still, act by booking a meeting at https://bredemarket.com/cpa/
(Imagen 4)
There are some things that I don’t bother to share in the Bredemarket blog, but instead just share to my socials.
This morning, I shared a story about the third-party risk management firm Whistic to LinkedIn’s Bredemarket Technology Firm Services page.
You can see an oft-used Bredemarket technique: rather than sharing everything from a third party (geddit?) article, I only share a bit of it, then encourage the reader to click on the link to see the rest of the content. Makes everybody happy. What could go wrong?
Then I shared the same story to Facebook’s Bredemarket Technology Firm Services page.
Or tried to.
Facebook removed the post, accusing me of using “misleading links or content to trick people.”
I’m so devious that even I couldn’t figure out what I did.
Until I re-read the post and noticed this parenthetical comment.
(And one more key finding. Read the article.)
Doesn’t seem like a trick to me, but I explicitly urged people to leave Facebook’s walled garden and read something.
I do this all the time—Facebook is the second most popular traffic source for Bredemarket, after Google—but apparently the way I did it in the Whistic post was a trick to Facebook’s readers.
The solution was simple: repost the article WITHOUT the offensive parenthetical comment.
So I did.
And Facebook removed the post again.
This isn’t the first time Facebook has rejected content that other platforms accepted without question…including other Meta platforms such as Instagram, Threads, and WhatsApp.
I was this close to ceasing content sharing on Facebook altogether.
But then I had an idea.
If I am offending Zuck by using text to supposedly trick people into clicking on a link…
…what would happen if I ONLY posted a link with no text at all?
And rather than posting the text of interest in Facebook’s walled garden…
…I put the text of interest in the Bredemarket blog, along with the Whistic link that offended Facebook so much?
Then I could share it on character-limited platforms such as Threads and Bluesky.
You see the irony here. For a while I’ve strived to place social content natively on each platform. Now the platforms are forcing me to place the real content on a platform I control.
And the text would look something like this:
Every year, Whistic surveys hundreds of Risk-Management and Information Security leaders to understand the trends, challenges, and opportunities that are actively shaping the third-party risk management (TPRM) industry.
In 2025, the average company in our survey works with 286 vendors—up by 21% versus last year….That increased demand comes with increased risk.
[C]ompanies are spending more time, more money, and more resources on TPRM, but still not meeting their own risk standards or reducing security events.
(And one more key finding. Read the article.)
https://www.whistic.com/resources/blog/2025-impact-report-takeaways
Bredemarket