Inspired by the Constant Contact session I attended at the Small Business Expo, I wanted to conceptualize the Bredemarket online presence, and decided to adopt a “planet with rings” model.
Think of Bredemarket as a planet. Like Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Jupiter, the planet Bredemarket is surrounded by rings.
A variety of social platforms, including Bluesky, Instagram, Substack, and Threads.
Additional social platforms, including TikTok, WhatsApp, and YouTube.
While this conceptualization is really only useful to me, I thought a few of you may be interested in some of the “inner rings.”
And if you’re wondering why your favorite way cool platform is banished to the outer edges…well, that’s because it doesn’t make Bredemarket any money. I’ve got a business to run here, and TikTok doesn’t help me pay the bills…
I just saw another of those urgent messages. The kind that say: “If you’re depending on social media channels owned by others, you’re a renter, not an owner. Create your own mailing list that you control!”
So this is a good time to remind you that Bredemarket has a mailing list.
No, not the WordPress service where you can receive my blog posts via email.
I’m talking about my MailChimp-managed mailing list with its own content.
In fact, I just sent a new mailing composed entirely on my phone.
If your strategy is solely based upon a single platform such as TikTok, CapCut, Substack, Canva, or any other, you’ve already lost by putting all your eggs in one social basket.
Social dependence
My Saturday TikTok post got me thinking about companies whose entire STRATEGY is based on TikTok.
Not tactics.
Strategy.
Even though the chance remains that TikTok may be banned in the United States, as it is already banned in India…and is not available in China.
Or the people that are so thrilled with Substack that they are stopping all other social media activity and concentrating solely on Substack.
Or the companies (I know of one) who base their strategy solely on Canva.
Or you can cite any other platform, dependence upon which could devastate your business overnight.
So own your own website and mailing list…right?
Well, at least Bredemarket doesn’t have to worry about losing access to my prospects and customers.
Even if I lose access to every single social media service, I still have my WordPress website and my MailChimp mailing list.
So I am 100% insulated, right?
Um, right?
OK, guess I’m threatened also.
Omnichannel distribution
In the biometric world, we talk about five factors of authentication and identity verification. If you depend upon a single factor, you’re in trouble. But using multiple factors lessens the risk.
Similarly, if you distribute your content via multiple channels, then a threat to any single channel doesn’t put you out of business.
(Sales pitch incoming)
And your distributed content can take multiple forms. Blogs. Case studies. White papers. Social content on multiple channels.
Assuming you actually create the content.
Or get someone to help you create it.
(Told you there would be a sales pitch.)
So rather than reading Bredemarket’s sales pitch (call to action), why don’t we work on creating yours? Click the image below and reserve a free meeting time.
Bredemarket promotes itself in all sorts of places. My LinkedIn newsletter is an example, but there are other places where Bredemarket speaks, including the Bredemarket blog and a number of social channels.
The channels that Bredemarket uses have varied over time. While wise minds such as Jay Clouse have recommended to not spread yourself thin, I ignored his advice and found myself expanding from LinkedIn to TikTok. (TikTok is a Chinese-owned social media platform. You may have heard of it.)
Then in May 2024 I contracted my online presence, announcing that I was retreating from some social channels “that have no subscribers, exhibit no interest, or yield no responses.” After I had shed some channels, I ended up on a basic list of Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Threads.
Now I may contract again, and I may expand again, but for now I want to touch upon the reasons why a business should post or not post on multiple social channels, and how the business can generate content for all those channels.
Why should you only post on a single social channel?
There is no right or wrong answer for every business, and there are some businesses that should only post on a single social channel.
If all your prospects are using a single social channel and are on NO OTHER channel, then you only need to post on that channel.
If you are NOT in danger of losing your account on that social channel because of some automated detection of a violation (“You violated one of the terms in our TOS. We won’t tell you which one. YOU figure it out.”), then you can continue to post on that channel and no other.
If the social channel is NOT in danger of business liquidation or forced government closure, then you can continue to post on that channel and no other.
Why should you post on multiple social channels?
Not all businesses satisfy all the criteria above. For one, your “hungry people” (target audience) may be dispersed among several social channels. From my personal experience, I know that some people only read Bredemarket content in my blog, some only read my content on LinkedIn, some only read my content on Facebook (yes, it’s true; one of Bredemarket’s long-term champions primarily engages with me on Facebook), some only on Instagram, and so forth.
What would happen if I decided to can most of my social channels and only post TikTok videos? I’d lose a lot of engagement and business.
Even if I concentrated on LinkedIn only, which seems like a logical tactic for a B2B service provider, I would lose out. Do you know how many people on Threads NEVER read LinkedIn? I don’t want to lose those people.
So that’s where I ended up. And if you know my system, the question after the “why” question is the “how” question…
How can you post on multiple social channels?
Repurposing…intelligently.
You don’t have to create completely unique content for every platform. You can adapt content for each platform, when it makes sense.
So now I’m going to eat my own wildebeest food and see where I can repurpose this text, which was originally a LinkedIn article. Yes, even on TikTok. I may not come up with a whopping 31 pieces of content like I did in a 2023 test, but I can certainly get this message out to people who hate LinkedIn. Perhaps maybe even to my mailing list, for people who have subscribed to the Bredemarket mailing list.
I haven’t figured out what I’ll do in this particular instance, but here are some general guidelines on content repurposing:
You can just copy and paste the entire piece of content on another platform. For example, I took all this text and copied it from the original LinkedIn article. But I hope I remembered to edit all the phrases that assume this content is posted on LinkedIn. And I’d have to consider something else…
You can just copy and paste the entire piece of content on another platform and remove the links. To be honest, no social media platform likes outbound links, but some platforms such as Instagram REALLY don’t like outbound links. So before you do this, ask if the content still makes sense if the links aren’t present.
You can provide a summary of the content and link back to the original content for more detail. Isolate the important points in the content, just publish those isolated points, and then link back to the original content if the reader wants more detail. Bear in mind that they probably won’t, because clicking on a link is one extra step that most people won’t want to do.
You can provide a really short summary of the content and link back to the original content for more detail. Bluesky and other Twitter wannabe platforms have character limitations, so often you have to really abridge the content to fit it in the platform. I’ve often written a “really short” version of my content for resharing, then discovered that even that version is too long for Bluesky.
You can address the content topic in an entirely different medium. Because of my preferences, I usually start with text and then develop an image and/or a video and/or audio that addresses the topic. But trust me—if I convert this blog post (yes, I rewrote the preceding three words when I copied this from the original LinkedIn article) into video or audio format, it will NOT include all the words you are reading here. Unless I’m feeling particularly cranky.
Oh, and if you’re using pictures with your content, don’t forget to adjust the pictures as needed. A 1920×1080 LinkedIn article image will NOT work on Instagram.
So there you have it. Posting on multiple social channels helps you reach people you may not otherwise reach, as long as you don’t spread yourself too thin or get discouraged. And you can repurpose content to fit within the expectations of each of these social channels, allowing you to re-use your content multiple times.
If you’ll excuse me, I have a lot of work to do. (Plus the usual Bredemarket services: I onboarded a new client yesterday and hope to onboard another one this week.)
A client is attending an in-person event and asked for advice on how to collect prospect leads at the event. (For awareness.)
Since I practice a mix of old school and new-school technologies, I’m suggesting the following:
Create a landing page for the event with a form to collect the prospect’s name, email, and other essential information, and feed those names into the client’s customer relationship management (CRM) system.
Create a printed sheet with a QR code leading to the landing page, have the prospect point their camera to the QR code, and then the prospect can enter their information directly from their phone.
There are many other ways to collect information, including specialized software and (really old school) business cards, but this way will work.
I wanted to demonstrate how to do this, but Bredemarket doesn’t have any in-person events on its calendar, and I don’t ask my prospects to sign up for my CRM.
Whenever I see these pieces that proclaim that the author can help you brainstorm x ideas for content, I ignore them. For better or worse, I have no problem coming up with content ideas.
And when I come up with the content ideas, I don’t just use them in one piece of content. I’ll use the idea in several pieces of content. Yes, I love repurposing.
I think I’ve set a new record for myself over the last few days by creating 31 pieces of content from a single idea.
The post doesn’t aim to tell you how you should create and reshare your content, but perhaps while you’re reading the post you may get some fresh ideas that fit your own working practices.
Three years of preparation
Before you can share content in numerous places, you need numerous places to share your content. It’s obvious, but it’s true. After all, it would be repetitive to post the exact same content multiple times in the Bredemarket blog.
So since I started Bredemarket in 2020, I not only developed the Bredemarket blog, but I have also developed (or made use of) other social platforms.
If you’re starting out in business, you’ve probably heard the advice that as your business branches out into social platforms, you shouldn’t try to do everything at once. Instead you should make sure that your business offering is really solid on one platform before branching out into others.
Yes, I’ve been naughty again and didn’t listen to the expert advice.
Four pages on LinkedIn, not counting my personal profile (we’ll get to my personal profile later).
Four pages/groups on Facebook.
Other image/text platforms such as Instagram and Threads.
Two video-only platforms: TikTok and YouTube.
Numerous audio outlets for my podcast.
My personal X account.
To the content marketing experts that say that I should just concentrate on LinkedIn and ignore everything else, note that I then have a 0% chance of reaching non-LinkedIn users. Who knows? Perhaps that TikTok video may result in a conversion that I couldn’t have made otherwise.
One idea
The idea that struck me last weekend was not original to me, and it’s been bouncing around in my head (and on these pages) for some time now. But I thought I’d reword it in a different way. After a few tweaks, I came up with the following statement:
Your Customers Don’t Care About Your Product’s Technology
As you will see, I continued to tweak the statement, but that’s the one that I put in my Asana “Content Calendar” project.
The Asana task that would eventually result in this blog post. Only the first subtasks are shown; as you will see, there are many more.
As I would subsequently reflect, I thought that companies knew that you need to focus on the customer rather than focusing on yourself, but I see too many companies that are self-focused in their marketing. They emphasize the amazing technology features of their product.
I want to put a stop to that, and if necessary I will help companies create customer-focused marketing materials. For a fee, of course.
But enough about me. Let’s illustrate how that one idea can expand into multiple content pieces.
31 pieces of content
So now I had to write about how customers don’t care about your product’s technology.
An image, sourced from Wikipedia, of a technologist doing technology things.
An image, designed by Freepik, of a customer ignoring someone prattling on about their technology.
The “customer focus” illustration that I have used frequently in the past.
An animated GIF that beckoned readers to the landing page, described below. The GIF includes the first two images listed above, plus a third from the landing page itself.
Most importantly, the post included all the text that made my original point (“Do you know why your prospects are ignoring you? Because they don’t care about you. It’s all about them.”), along with my argument for customer focus, and my concluding call to action to find out how to “Create Technology Content That Converts.”
Content 2: Landing page
And “Create Technology Content That Converts” was the title of my landing page. Often I put the call to action on the same page as the original point, but sometimes (as in this case) I separate the call to action for a more focused presentation. Plus I have the option of having multiple blog posts point to the same landing page. This post points to the landing page, for example (click the GIF above or one of the other links).
The landing page dug more deeply into why and how Bredemarket can help you create a customer-focused message, talking about the questions I ask, the types of content I can create, and the process.
Once all this was done, everything was set. People who read the blog post could (if so inclined) go to the landing page, and people who read the landing page could (if so inclined) contact me.
But only if they saw the blog post in the first place.
If they don’t find the post on Google or Bing, and if they’re not already subscribing to the blog, then how will they get to the blog post?
Content 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8: Information pages
There are numerous themes that continuously pop up in the Bredemarket blog, and I have created “information pages” (pillars) that link to all of the content that I have written on these themes.
Now perhaps you won’t do all of this, but if there’s a place on your website where you should mention your new blog post, be sure and do it.
For example, if you wrote a blog post about Topic X in 2021, and you’re readdressing Topic X in a 2023 post, then go back and update the 2021 post to say that you have new thoughts on Topic X. Then the people who find your 2021 post can go to the new post and get the latest information.
Content 9: Audio podcast
My podcast is more accurately described as a mini-podcast, because each episode is usually only 1-2 minutes long. Perhaps someday I’ll create hour-long episodes, but not today.
And on Sunday I created a 2-minute episode with a new take. After noting (as I said above) that sometimes we know things that people don’t know, I declared:
I then described a really bad General Electric press release that focused on GE technology and not on customer needs.
Then I plugged the blog post, which was linked in the episode description. And I resued the “technologist doing technology thinks” image from the blog post.
Now I only list this as one piece of content, but really it’s multiple pieces of content. Not only can you access the episode on Spotify for Podcasters (formerly Anchor), but you can also access it on Spotify itself, Apple Podcasts, and numerous other podcast hosting services.
After this, I returned to the blog post itself and looked for other ways to share it.
Content 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, and 17: Bredemarket LinkedIn and Facebook pages, showcase pages, and groups
Because the blog post explicitly mentioned “technology” in the title, the best fit for a reshare of the blog post was on the Bredemarket Technology Firm Services LinkedIn showcase page (reshare here) and Facebook group (reshare here).
Why do I have a myriad of LinkedIn and Facebook outlets?
Because often people who are interested in technology don’t care about identity, and people who are interested in the Inland Empire don’t care about technology, and people who care about Bredemarket in general don’t care about every identity company reshare that I post.
And of course, some people who love LinkedIn hate Facebook, and some people who love Facebook hate LinkedIn.
So I could have just shared this to the technology outlets, but this particular post had a broader application. Inland Empire businesses, identity companies, and general marketers all have the problem of referring to self rather than the customer.
So I reshared the original technology shares to the other relevant groups.
You know how the Instagram experts say that you should post reels? Or you should post carousels? Or whatever?
I say that you should post a healthy balance of all sorts of things.
I wanted to reshare the blog post on Instagram, so I posted an Instagram carousel post using the two images from the blog post and the “money” image from the landing page.
Even though Instagram is a terrible platform to reshare content on other platforms, because the links aren’t clickable.
Unless you reshare the post as a story and use the “link” feature to embed a link.
Content 19 and 20: Bredemarket Threads and JEBredCal X
Oh, and there are two other places where I reshared the link to the blog post:
As a xeet or whatever tweets are called these days. (This is not an official Bredemarket X account, but my “professional” X account where I share Bredemarket stuff and other stuff.)
So that encompassed the first set of content reshares. But before I go on…
Content 21: LinkedIn reshare of podcast
All of the stuff listed above was stuff that I meticulously planned by listing subtasks to the original Asana task “Your Customers Don’t Care About Your Product’s Technology.”
But I forgot that I deviated from Asana and also shared a link to the podcast in the Bredemarket Technology Firm Services LinkedIn showcase page.
Some people are horrified that I deviated from Asana and didn’t record this important share. (And they’ll really be horrified later in this post when I create another piece of content and don’t log it in Asana.)
Others are horrified that I put all the other stuff in Asana in the first place.
As for me, well, I got the content out. Cool.
But the blog post wasn’t enough. I needed to convey the same message in a different way, for those who think words and stuff aren’t cool.
Content 22, 23, 24, and 25: The short
In the same way that I created an audio podcast that made the same points as the blog post (while linking to the blog post), I wanted to create a video vertical short that did the same thing.
So I headed out to the Southern California Edison Euclid Substation.
I then stood in front of some very technological stuff, and filmed 27 seconds of me talking about the prospect’s problems…and your problem…and how Bredemarket can solve your problem.
By the time I was finished, the video short was available on:
So now both WordPress and Instagram had two pieces of content that kinda sorta said the same thing. But this is good. Maybe some people like the video version, while others like the text version. I’ll catch them one way or ther other.
But before I actually shot the video at the SCE Euclid Substation…
Content 26: Instagram Live/Reel
…I was scouting out locations. (If you know the Talking Heads song “Found a Job” you’ll recognize the phrase.)
When I arrived at the SCE Euclid Substation, I walked around the south and west sides of the substation, looking for the best place to shoot my video.
And I was broadcasting on Instagram Live as I was doing this, offering my adoring fans a rare “behind the scenes” look at Bredmarket activities. And, incidentally, proving that Bredemarket behind the scenes is pretty boring.
But the Instagram Live session was recorded, and was posted as a reel a couple of days before my video short was posted.
I don’t know if it made a huge difference in the subsequent reception of the short, but one of my relatives liked the “behind the scenes” look so that’s good.
So those 26 pieces of content addressed Bredemarket’s views on customer focus and benefits.
But my life is not confined to Bredemarket. Time for one huge repurpose.
Content 27: jebredcal blog post
At the same time that I’m asking Bredemarket prospects to contract with me, I’m asking technology companies (including identity companies) to hire me as a Senior Product Marketing Manager.
And the same message can, with some adaptation, be delivered to hiring companies.
If you compare the jebredcal blog post with the original Bredemarket blog post, you can see some clear similarities…with some noticeable differences. For example, I don’t ask employers to use Bredemarket’s calendly, email, or web messaging channels. I use my personal email and my LinkedIn profile messaging capability instead.
Now that the blog post was written, I was ready to share it on LinkedIn where the employers are. (No Facebook. No TikTok.)
Correction: I was ALMOST ready to share a link to the post on LinkedIn. I had to complete one thing first.
Content 28: Personal short
I decided that on the day before I shared the post on LinkedIn, I’d create a personal video short that introduced the content.
But this one, rather than taking place in front of a cool electrical facility, would be a behind-the-scenes view of Bredemarket’s world headquarters. Since the city of Ontario restricts you from viewing this yourself (restriction 3), this is the only way that you will ever see Bredemarket’s world headquarters.
Exciting?
No, completely boring.
But I did it anyway, and posted the video on LinkedIn yesterday. (And if you look to the left, you can see Bredemarket’s business license as required by restriction 1.)
Content 29: The LinkedIn share of the jebredcal post
Once I realized that I was going to write one blog post for Bredmarket prospects and one post for potential employers, I decided to write a third post that talked out how you create different content for different target audiences. As I noted above, the two pieces of content have significant similarities, but also significant differences.
But as I thought about it, I thought it would be more important to illustrate how you could take a single idea and repurpose it as 30 different pieces of content.
Well, 30 so far. I still have to figure out how and where to reshare THIS blog post…
Content 31: LinkedIn post about a job rejection
Stop the presses!
And here’s another EXCITING behind-the-scenes look at how Bredemarket works!
By Tuesday afternoon (October 10, 2023), I had substantially completed writing this blog post on “How I Expanded 1 Idea Into 30 Pieces of Content.” But since there was no huge rush to publish the post—after all, I had just published 29 other pieces of content over the past few days—I figured I’d take advantage of the opportunity to “sleep on it” and look at the post one more time before publication.
Then something happened early Wednesday morning.
Every day, potential employers tell thousands of job candidates that they are “moving in a different direction.” By Original: Jack Ver at Dutch Wikipedia Vector: Ponor – Own work based on: Plaatsvector.png by Jack Ver at Dutch Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=95477901
I received a “you have not been selected for this position” email from a potential employer. I had only applied for the position two days earlier, on Monday, right in the midst of all of this content creation.
If you are one of the lucky talent acquisition professionals who is still employed, there is ONE CRITICAL THING that you MUST impress upon your employers.
Please tell your employers NOT to list positions as “remote/hybrid.”
That’s kind of like listing a food as “vegan/beef.” Is it vegan, or is it beef? It’s a mystery until you take a bite, and there’s a 50% chance you will be disappointed or horrified with what you find.
You may ask what a LinkedIn post about “remote/hybrid” job listings has to do with incorrectly-focused product marketing messaging.
It’s all in the call to action. Those who read to the end of the post encountered these words.
Anyway, if you’ve read this far and are seeking an experienced identity/biometrics/technology Senior Product Marketing Manager for a #remote position (or a position within 25 miles of Ontario, California), please message me. The linked post below includes my contact information, as well as my philosophy on product marketing messaging.
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.”
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:
(This post addresses something that I already announced last week to the Bredemarket mailing list. If you are already subscribed to the mailing list, then you can skip this post. If not, (1) subscribe via the http://eepurl.com/hdHIaT link, and (2) read the post below to catch up on what you missed last week.)
There are three ways that your firm can engage with your content creator.
On one extreme, your firm can hire the content creator as a full-time employee. This gives you the benefit of content creator availability at any time (or at least during office hours; don’t make TOO many 3:00 am calls to your employees).
On the other extreme, your firm can contract with the content creator for a single project. Maybe a blog post. Maybe a white paper. Maybe a tweet. Maybe a proposal responding to a Request for Proposal (RFP).
These extremes satisfy most firms. But a few firms—perhaps yours—need something between these two extremes.
The Drawbacks of Per-Project Content Creation
There are three potential issues with engaging content creators on a per-project basis.
The first issue is work flexibility. If you engage a content creator to write a blog post for you, you get that work done easily. But when you need something else, you need to re-engage the content creator under a separate project.
The second issue is budget predictability. Sure, only engaging content creators on a project-by-project basis helps you save costs (to some extent), but it’s very hard to predict what your future costs will be. Do you think you’ll need two new white papers four months from now, or five months from now.
The third issue is consultant accessibility. You may approach a content creator for a project that you need, only to find that the content creator is completely booked for the next few weeks.
Is there a way to ensure work flexibility, budget predictability, and consultant accessibility—short of hiring the consultant as a full-time employee?
Announcing the Bredemarket 4444 Partner Retainer
My new offering, announced last week to the Bredemarket mailing list, is a retainer offering that allows you to use Bredemarket for ANY writing task, up to a set number of hours per month. In effect, I’m embedded in your organization to serve you as needed.
Within the hours you select in the partner retainer contract, Bredemarket can create any content you need—blogs, case studies / testimonials, data sheets, e-books, proposals, social media posts / Xs (or whatever tweets are called today), white papers, or anything.
In addition, the retainer hours are discounted from my usual rate, so you save money that you would have spent if you contracted with me separately for multiple projects.
How can you learn more?
To learn more how the Bredemarket 4444 Partner Retainer works,
Bredemarket 