Demystifying DevRel

Cheuk Ting Ho

@cheukting_ho

Cheukting

About me

Co-organizer of 

Open Source contribution

Creator of

Volenteer of

Developer Advocate of

Seriously, what is DevRel?

Developer Relations involves being a social media influencer on behalf of big corporations -- without being honest about that fact. Unfollowing DevRel folks here has been a good move.

There should be no full-time DevRels. They should all rotate, working on real code and real products half of the time, especially those in dire need of what they are preaching.

Am I the only one to whom "developer advocate" sounds like a career path that's a bit like "dermatologist"? ...in the sense that it's people who went to medical school but didn't quite cut it as REAL doctors?

It’s not just folks like me standing on stages giving talks. It’s not sales. It’s not our traditional understanding of marketing these, tho it has some similarities at times. It’s not really even quite engineering or even product.

  • TO THE COMMUNITY, I REPRESENT THE COMPANY.
     
  • TO THE COMPANY, I REPRESENT THE COMMUNITY.
     
  • I MUST HAVE BOTH OF THEIR INTERESTS IN MIND AT ALL TIMES.

It's about people, community and relations

Our jobs aren’t made solidly up of travel, conferences, and speaking

Dispire what it looks like on Twitter...

  • We advocate for product issues, features, and improvements.

  • We take good, bad, and ugly feedback to the team.

  • We write content, make tools, and create sample applications to help developers better understand what our product is.

  • We research and write about good practices in hopes of empowering developers.

  • We share content that developers are producing to other community members.

Why is DevRel effective?

When a developer chooses a certain service, this patronage goes on for years.

 

Acquiring a skill often takes several years, so disposing of a product immediately and changing to another is difficult, which means a lot of discretion is used when choosing.

How developer choose what to use?

Marketing that does not reach developers does not have any meaning.

Through DevRel, they feel peace of mind in knowing they have chosen well.

  • DevRel puts an emphasis on creating a relationship built upon trust with the developer.
     
  • They know their feedbacks are influential.
     
  • Support form DevRel and the community.
     
  • Empowered by DevRel and the community.

DevRel is

  • Word of mouth
  • Content marketing
  • Social media marketing
  • Joint marketing
  • Engagement marketing

Who's using DevRel?

Many companies around the world, not only Silicon Valley, make use of DevRel.

  • AWS
  • Google
  • IBM
  • Facebook
  • Unity
  • Salesforce
  • Twitter
  • SendGrid
  • Twilio
  • DataChemist

From small startups to international companies, everyone is aware of the importance of using it.

DevRel is Avocado

🥑🥑🥑🥑🥑

"the good kind of fat"

“fatty” part of the business:

  • community endeavors
  • speaking engagements
  • conference and open-source sponsorships
  • and anything we can think of

used resources in the right ways, at the right times, with the right combination of items 👉 contribute to the health of the company