Blogging as a Developer

Should one blog under own name (personal brand) or came up with a specific name for a blog? Which approach is better and why?

I've published a small handful of blog posts on Medium so far this year - it was definitely easy to get set up and just jot down thoughts until enough came together to make a cohesive post in itself.

I didn't intend to "start a blog" at all, I wouldn't consider myself a blogger.

• My first proper post came about because I merely had some thoughts on what someone else said. I was originally going to Tweet a reply, but what I had to say was hard to explain without examples and a bit of an explanation, so it ended up being long enough to make it an entire post.
• My second proper post (explaining bitmasks) was something I was simply curious about myself, and all I wanted to do was note down some points because it's a subject not often talked about in PHP-land
• I have a few more posts I've made in the meantime, but generally, these are just miscellaneous thoughts or links to libraries I've made, and posting about it on a blog, even if just a few words, makes it feel like it's "out there" that little bit more

Writing has definitely had an effect on me as a developer over the past few months. I'm finding it pushes me in different directions and researching more into a couple of topics than I otherwise would have.

It helps me to solidify ideas and back up my opinions on them instead of just letting them fester half-unfinished in the back of my mind.

I think I got all right besides the community part.

I have hunderets of followers on dev.to and Twitter, but I have the feeling there isn't much interaction happening.

The only thing that gets me going is the fact that I love software development and like to learn new things, but most of the time I have the feeling nobody really cares about what and if I write.

Even when I write comments on other peoples posts they often just post replies that feel like generic acknowledgments to me. "Thanks for your opinion blabla", like, they know they have to answer so it looks like something is happening on their posts and they are responsive, but they don't really care about what other people think.

On the other hand, I'm not the social type, maybe this shines through online and people don't bother, hehe.

super helpful post thank you.

I am a react/rails dev with 3 years now, and I am just starting to write blog posts and articles , i've found dev.to to be a great outlet , i'm experiencing all of the things you've listed above , especially the reinforcing of new concepts.

I usually like to write about problems and issues i run into , and are at first really difficult for me to understand, i feel like those are the most important ones to write about. not only does it reinforce my own knowledge of the issue, but also i can hopefully maybe reach someone who is struggling with a similar issue and help them solve it!

thanks so much

Which platform would you say is better for posting daily? I was considering Medium or Dev.to, but they seemed much better for larger posts that aren't as frequent as daily.

Great tips! I need to sort out that last point on my personal blog, related posts might get more articles in front of people.

I've got one more point for you for why to blog though. I'm always checking old posts I wrote to remind me of things I know. I write for future Phil and it normally helps me out, if it helps anyone else then that's a bonus.

I'll add this: when in doubt, post it. I framed out a post in like February of 2016 about my perspective on Snapchat's prospects and where I thought their roadmap would take them. I think on like 5 of 7 points I was dead on, and I just never posted it because I was concerned about being right. It obviously wasn't an educational post, but it ran counter to much of the zeitgeist at the time, and I just wish I had put it out there.

I love this article. I keep trying to think of the best way to jump in and write a substantial article that is technical in nature, but I think most would be too full of weird math stuff that I'm excited about to attract an audience or to give me a larger profile for my job search. But the article is a great confidence booster and guide.

Helpful tips all in one place as I start my own blog adventures. Did a Wordpress workshop a few weeks ago..

Somehow the gained readership anti-proportional to the amount of time I put into an article.

This is good, but it's describing blogging as something with a metric for success, and I don't think blogging needs that.
If your purpose with blogging is anything other than to write about stuff you're passionate about, then you should probably start by defining your goal.
Is it to get the largest number of followers you can? Then you can start by looking for the low-hanging fruit - if the medium you've chosen doesn't already have a food fight about vim Vs Emacs, start one!
Is it to improve your chances of getting a particular job? Then you could do better if you research the role and find something to write about which relates to both the company and yourself.

This is great. Blogging is great. I highly recommend blogging :)

But seriously: it has (good!) unintended consequences.

You start to feel more confident, because the act of writing blogs/tutorials will fill in the missing gaps in your knowledge.

People will start treating you like you know what you're talking about! Don't discount this. It feeds your confidence and causes a nice positive feedback loop, and also can lead to real opportunities (paid guest posts, jobs, consulting, etc). This is sort of unexpected and sort of counterintuitive. It's easy to look at the Twitter-famous devs and wonder how they got that way. Chances are, they got that way by consistently putting stuff out there that people found valuable. Could be open source software, but often it's combined with a significant amount of writing helpful stuff.

I'm a big fan of having your own platform. Facebook, Twitter, Medium... they're great for getting the word out, but they own the traffic and the readers. I suggest posting to your own site first, and syndicating content ("importing it") to Medium, dev.to, etc.

The other huge benefit to owning the platform is you can build up an email list, and stay in touch with your readers. When you get an email from someone saying how much your post helped them, got them unstuck after days of struggling, made a concept clear in their mind... that's an awesome feeling. It's huge for motivation, too.

I love the meta-advice from this article: that you can reuse content in multiple forms :) Turn your talk into a blog post. Turn a popular blog post into a talk. Or a podcast, or a video (series, even). Or a tweet thread. Sky's the limit!

Thank you so much Ali. I just started my first blog and it was super fun and rewarding. While considering where to publish my blog, I found dev.to to be the most welcoming community to first-time bloggers. The community is amazing!

My current goal is to write a blog once a month.

Thanks for posting this. These tips are everything I need for an extra push I officially started blogging.

I just posted an article last night on my blog. I'd definitely re post it here. Great article <3