Content Marketing For Developers

Today I was reading about content marketing. It’s become quite popular online. Although it’s not my area of expertise, I wanted to share my thoughts about how this relates to developers.

What is content marketing?

If you want more information, check out this post: https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2017/07/explain-content-marketing/

In this article, Michele Linn states that her favorite example is American Doll(a company that sells dolls) writing a post about girls growing up. This serves to build the brand of American Doll, rather than trying to advertize about the quality of the doll’s hair, their latest model, or the quality of the plastic they use. As Michele Linn put it, “content marketing is educational but is not about the products the company sells”.

How can we apply this to development?

Let’s imagine a developer as a product, and a company is purchasing this product as an asset to improve the companies’ production capabilities. Is there a way we can advertise a devleoper’s utility without directly advertizing our skills and experience?

A solution - Start a blog (Seriously, just do it!)

The majority of developers have heard at one time or another that they should have a blog. It’s recommended all over dev.to, medium, and reddit. It’s a good way for a developer to interview themselves. Writing about code forces the developer to fact check themselves since more people will be reading what they say. This leads to a greater understanding of the topics they write about, and allows for memory recall that helps set the ideas deeper into the mind. It is a showcase of their skills, interests, choices, and thought processes. A good blog can replace a technical interview. Which is great if the developer is really amazing at their job, but struggles with interviews over the phone or on zoom which require them to focus in front of a stranger.

But there’s more to it than just all of these bonuses above. Let’s useSimpleprogrammer.com as an example for how blogging can be leveraged like content marketing. This blog was started by John Somnez, and he grew it to the size it is today. In his book, The Software Developer’s Career Guide he talks about how the blog changed his life. It grew his skills, but it also gathered interest from clients and companies everywhere. When recruiters and devs would read his blog, they wanted to hire him. They came to the site to read the contents of the site. However, this also ended up making John insanely valuable. In his book he mentions that his contract pay rate kept doubling until it reached over $1000 per hour and even today he is so busy that he doesn’t really do it anymore unless it’s worth his time.

Having something to say - Starting a blog

“But what do I blog about?”

The blog should focus on offering value to the reader. It’s not just about what the dev knows or has done, it’s also about what the developer can help others do. This is what will bring readers in. It’s also what will make the dev more hireable. The blog should serve to build the brand of the developer rather than trying to sell themselves as a service.

Here are some ideas for blog posts:

• A design pattern that made your code cleaner
• A playlist you enjoy listening to while coding
• A keyboard that you like
• An online IDE that allows you to code from anywhere
• Things you have learned as a new hire developer
• Things you have learned as a mid level developer
• How to get the most out of meetings as a developer
• How to have less meetings
• What to do during meeting to be effective …

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