Developer Community Building 101 There are many sources of developer community building information, including conferences (DevRelXCon), training, and articles. An interesting article about developer community building best practices by SparkPost CMO Josh Aberant made it to a mainstream marketing media site, MarketingLand. This worthy piece invited the question: What content accompanies these useful best practices? The 6 Best Practices Josh Aberant offered these best practices: Research what kind of members you want to attract, so you’re able to draw them in with authentic interactions and relevance. Put a plan in place before you launch, making sure you’ve got perfect [...]

Really, though? Really. Even for technical information, voice search is on the rise, and developers, DevOps teams, and other IT professionals are using it. Don’t believe us? Believe Evans Data. Results from their  2019 Developer Marketing Survey reveal that developers commonly use voice-activated search or voice-recognition-based search to look for technical information. How common is it?  >60% said that this activity occurs at least a few times per week. Now what? Start simple. There are some voice-activated search principles that translate into creating content across markets, including developers. The translational voice-activated search principles for technical content are common sense [...]

Before Tech Support If you are marketing to developers or other experts in tech, it’s likely you are building some kind of community. Sure, you have your existing customers who need documentation, tutorials, etc. However, what attracts new techies to your brand and your product is all the information you provide before they hit Download, and certainly before they hit Purchase. Enter the tech resource hub. Why? Well, some of it is about building developer enthusiasm for your product. But they can’t talk about it if they don’t know how to use it. So there’s the developer/tech buzz factor. [...]

It’s Like a Map It’s true, a picture is worth a thousand words. But infographics often include words, and even need them to tell a story. That’s because an infographic is more of an information map, helping the viewer understand a frame of logic, a concept, a process, and the significance of information. By using eye-catching graphics with minimal words, infographics engage our brain’s ability to see patterns and trends. While developers lack patience for infographic overuse, they will respond to judicious use. Increase your technical content ROI by finding an image you can create that is more impactful [...]

Maximize Your ROI You’ve acquired authoritative, developer-community resonant technical content. Now what? Is it just going to sit on a landing page or get buried in your blog? Not if you want to maximize exposure and your ROI (return on investment). Focusing on location can help you maximize your technical content campaign results. Location There are three critical aspects to location: where you place the content, where you promote the content, and where you point the content (and the reader). Placement. With something more deep, technical, and evergreen, like a white paper, you might be committed to a landing [...]