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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.

This post talks about:

• Three years of preparation.
• One idea.
• 31 pieces of content.

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.

But how many social platforms should you use? In July, I noted what the experts advise, and how I responded to that advice.

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.

From https://bredemarket.com/2023/07/18/is-bredemarket-on-your-favorite-social-platform/

The July post lists all of the social platforms that publish Bredemarket content, but for brevity’s sake, I’ll just note a few of the platforms:

• 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.

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.

Content 1: Blog post

The first step was to work on the content required for a blog post on the topic. By the time I was done, the post (now called “Your Prospects Don’t Care About Your Technology“) included:

• 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.

The landing page concluded with the call to action encouraging interested parties to schedule a meeting on my recently-improved Calendly page, email me, or use my contact form. (Or subscribe to my Mailchimp mailing list.)

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.

• This blog post obviously dealt with customer focus, so I mentioned the post on my customer focus information page.
• But it also addressed benefits and features. Two more mentions.
• But it also dealt with awareness, consideration, and conversion. Three more mentions.

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:

Am I smarter than General Electric? Yes I am.

From https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bredemarket/episodes/Why-Should-I-Care-That-General-Electric-Uses-AI-e2aaenl

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.

Content 18: Instagram carousel

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 thread.
• 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:

• YouTube.
• TikTok.
• WordPress.
• Instagram.

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.

So I wrote a separate blog post on my jebredcal personal blog, “Do Your Prospects Ignore Your Company’s Message?” that addressed the latter target audience.

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

After a day’s wait, the jebredcal blog post was shared on LinkedIn. I haven’t been swamped with job offers yet, but content marketing doesn’t work like that.

Content 30: You’re reading it right now

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.

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.

Proving that I can create content out of ANYTHING, I authored a LinkedIn post that began as follows:

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.

From LinkedIn.

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.

From LinkedIn.

And then I linked to my personal jobseeking blog post “Do Your Prospects Ignore Your Company’s Message?”

• For those keeping score, that blog post was content number 27.
• Even though I already posted a link to that post on LinkedIn already. See content number 29.
• And no, I didn’t list this content in Asana either (see content number 21).

I guess this 31st item is a special treat. Like ice cream.