LinkedIn – Page 4 – Bredemarket

Why Generic Pablum is Critical for Your Company—Critically Bad

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I spend a lot of time on LinkedIn and therefore endure the regular assault from the so-called LinkedIn “experts.”

You know them.

The people who get all bent out of shape over this character—because it’s certain proof that you use “ChatGPT” (because there is no other generative AI tool) because no human ever uses em dashes.
And then in the next breath the LinkedIn “experts” slam people who don’t use “ChatGPT” to increase productivity. For example, jobseekers should use “ChatGPT” to “beat the ATS,” automatically fine-tune their resumes for every individual application, and apply to thousands of positions.
Oh, but the LinkedIn “experts” say you shouldn’t spray and pray. Tap into the hidden job market via our members-only gated website.

But that’s not the worst thing they say.

Formulate Safe Generic Pablum

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.

No cat pictures.
No “life sucks” posts.
Nothing that would cause anyone any offense.

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.”

Obliterate Safe Generic Pablum

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.

In the distance.

That’s Not Your Job

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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.

The real Blayden Rose, courtesy the Delaware State Police. The police like to take pictures of special people.

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.

Don’t Learn to Code 2

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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:

Anthropic states (possibly in self-interest) that unemployment could hit 20% in five years.
One quarter of all programming jobs already vanished in the last two years.
A LinkedIn executive echoed the pessimism about the future (while LinkedIn hypes its own AI capabilities to secure the dwindling number of jobs remaining).
The Federal Reserve cited high college graduate rates of unemployment (5.8%) and underemployment (41.2%).

Read the entire article here.

Your Friends Aren’t Your Hungry People

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.

On one extreme, companies only share content on company channels, to better establish the brand of WidgetCorp or whatever.

On the other extreme, company heads only share content on their personal channels because their personal connections are so important to the company’s success. In fact, these company heads may not even bother to create separate company pages.

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 experiment

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?

I’d share Bredemarket Facebook content to my personal Facebook feed…and with very few exceptions I’d end up with crickets.

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

Or I’d share some Bredemarket LinkedIn content to my personal LinkedIn account. Often…crickets.

But most painful of all was when I would share Bredemarket Instagram posts to my Instagram stories. Higher impressions then the same stories on the Bredemarket account…but absolutely no engagement. Crickets again.

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.

Why share corporate content on personal feeds?

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.

Those who are dying to see Bredemarket content will subscribe to the appropriate Bredemarket Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn feeds.

But frankly, my friends have no need or desire to see Bredemarket content, so they won’t.

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.

What’s Your Opinion of My Performance?

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.

Why do the wrong things enjoy stellar performance?

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.

As an example, this Bredemarket Instagram reel about the San Antonio Avenue bridge between Ontario and Upland, California has been viewed over 6,800 times, when most of my reels only feature double digit views. Why? I have no idea.
Similarly, this Bredemarket blog post that mentions both the Shipley Business Development Lifecycle and the ? and the Mysterians song “96 Tears” (geddit?) continues to rack up views week after week, having amassed over 3,000 views since its 2021 publication.
And both are dwarfed by my Private Equity Talent Hunt LinkedIn post and its 24,000+ impressions.

For me, these random posts delivered big numbers.

The performance that matters

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.

What about your performance?

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/

Escape from Spiderweb Mountain

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.

A blog page that was last updated in early 2024. (Read on.)
A LinkedIn company page with no posts at all.
Similar dust-covered company social properties that cause prospects to doubt your existence or your viability.

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/

This is a real book: https://bredemarket.com/7qs/

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Defeating the Metabot to Share Whistic’s Survey Results

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.

First attempt to share to Facebook

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.

Second attempt to share to Facebook

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.

Now I’m engaging in real trickery

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:

What I tried to say this morning

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

Jobseekers and Know Your (Fill in the Blank)

I’ve noticed that my LinkedIn posts on jobseeking perform much better than my LinkedIn posts on the technical intricacies of multifactor identity verification.

But maybe I can achieve both mass appeal and niche engagement.

Private Equity Talent Hunt and Emma Emily

A year ago I reposted something on LinkedIn about a firm called Private Equity Talent Hunt (among other names). As Shelly Jones originally explained, their business model is to approach a jobseeker about an opportunity, ask for a copy of the jobseeker’s resume, and then spring the bad news that the resume is not “ATS friendly” but can be fixed…for a fee.

The repost has garnered over 20,000 impressions and over 200 comments—high numbers for me.

It looks like a lot of people are encountering Jennifer Cona, Elizabeth Vardaman, Sarah Williams, Jessica Raymond, Emily Newman, Emma Emily (really), and who knows how many other recruiters…

…who say they work at Private Equity Talent Hunt, Private Equity Recruiting Firm, Private Equity Talent Seek, and who knows how many other firms.

If only there were a way to know if you’re communicating with a real person, at a real business.

Actually, there is.

Know Your Customer and Business

As financial institutions and other businesses have known for years, there are services such as “Know Your Customer” and “Know Your Business” that organizations can use.

KYC and KYB let companies make sure they’re dealing with real people, and that the business is legitimate and not a front for another company—or for a drug cartel or terrorist organization.

So if a company is approached by Emma Emily at Private Equity Talent Hunt, what do they need to do?

The first step is to determine whether Emma Emily is a real person and not a synthetic identity. You can use a captured facial image, analyzed by liveness detection, coupled with a valid government ID, and possibly supported by home ownership information, utility bills, and other documentation.

If there is no Emma Emily, you can stop there.

But if Emma Emily is a real person, you can check her credentials. Where is she employed today? Where was she employed before? What are her post secondary degrees? What does her LinkedIn profile say? If her previous job was as a jewelry designer and her Oxford degree was in nuclear engineering, Emma Emily sounds risky.

And you can also check the business itself, such as Private Equity Talent Hunt. Check their website, business license, LinkedIn profile, and everything else about the firm.

But I’m not a business!

OK, I admit there’s an issue here.

There are over 100 businesses that provide identity verification services, and many of them provide KYC and KYB.

To other businesses.

Very few people purchase KYC and KYB per se for personal use.

So you have to improvise.

Ask Emma Emily some tough questions.

Ask her about the track record of her employer.

And if Emma Emily claims to be a recruiter for a well-known company like Amazon, ask for her corporate email address.

(Image from Microsoft Copilot)

NPE Comments That Fall Flat

(NPE Image from Imagen 3. It’s like rain…)

Have you ever seen a piece of content that makes you ill?

I just read a week-old comment on a month-old LinkedIn post. The original poster was pursuing a new opportunity, and the commenter responded as follows:

“Incredible achievements! Your journey with GTM teams is truly inspiring. It’s exciting to see you ready to tackle the next challenge. What qualities do you value most when looking for your next venture?”

At least it didn’t have a rocket emoji, but the comment itself had a non-person entity (NPE) feel to it.

Not surprisingly, the comment was not from a person, but from a LinkedIn page.

And not a company page, but an industry-specific showcase page for the tech industry.

Needless to say, I see nothing wrong with that. After all, Bredemarket has its own technology LinkedIn showcase page, Bredemarket Technology Firm Services.

But when Bredemarket’s LinkedIn pages comment on other posts, I write the comments all by myself, and don’t let generative AI draft them for me. So my comments have none of these generic platitudes or fake engagement attempts that don’t work.

I have absolutely no idea why the “incredible achievements” comment was, um, “written” or what its goals were.

Awareness? Consideration? Conversion? Or mere Revulsion?