Branding for Developers : A Practical Guide

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Hello, precious bug dealers! Huge kudos to you for diving into the world of building your brand. Believe me, not every software developer explores this path.

By the way, what is “Personal Branding”? Let me explain.

“Personal branding is the art of consistently presenting, online and offline, the essence of how you stand out from the crowd.”

In other words, you need to be consistent and work on specific things that are a part of you and how people see you. So it’s really about you－about yourself, who you are, and who you want to be.

Oh wait, let's be kinda honest, shan't we?

Practically and honestly, personal branding is about how you wish to be seen because, let's face it, whether or not you consciously care about others' opinions, it holds significance.

So yes, since you have taken the first step, we can take the BIG step of building your brand. But in case you’re still wondering why on the earth you need to build a brand as a developer, I summed it up.

1. It Opens BIG OPPORTUNITIES!

Same as everyone, you too might be applying for many and many jobs if you find a match but only some of them accept you.

As a developer personal branding matters when you are looking to change your job. You want your employers to hire you not only as a good developer but also as an innovative one. To make that possible, you need to cultivate a personal brand that can highlight your value to your potential employers.

For a real example, Victoria Lo, a developer with a strong brand, landed a job at Paypal, without sending a single application or a CV.

2. You can learn more and more!

While creating a personal brand, you meet many people from your niche. You interact with them, share your knowledge, learn from them, and discuss ideas and all this will give you a level of expertise that wouldn’t have been possible otherwise. It doesn't matter how you want to improve your career, personal branding is the key!

Yup, I think that’s enough. Now the important part is how to build your brand. Here's how.

Building Your Brand

Here are the steps you have to follow to build your strong brand.

1. Find your brand personality (name, brand color, etc.).

The most important task. If this fails, everything fails. But don't worry, I will guide you.

First, choose the brand colors. It’s totally up to you. But make sure it’s remarkable. If someone sees your brand color, they must remember who you are.

One thing you should remember is to choose living and unique colors. If you’re an individual, I highly recommend not using just black and white. Seeing the colors black and white everywhere feels like it's not alive. Use some colors like blue, pink, green— any color that looks alive, and fresh.

For example, Chris Bongers has chosen a combination of colors such as pink, blue, and yellow as his brand colors, and now no matter where you see those, the name "Daily Dev Tips" will come right into your mind.

And the most important thing— building your brand name. Sounds easy, right? But it’s not that easy; at least for me, it was not easy.

Your brand name doesn’t always need to be your real one. If your name is too long and hard to spell or pronounce, it might not be able to build a strong brand. This is where a lot of developers fail.

Taking my brand name as an example, it might seem meaningless but by the moment someone hears it, they can spell or pronounce it. Besides, it gives a basic idea I always wanted— kinda messy yet sometimes over-energetic(which leads to unexpected disasters...). In my point of view, it's just perfect!

I think now you have an idea of how what your brand name should be. But I’m sure it’s not easy to build a strange name. What about a name that has terms of your area of expertise, one of your characteristics, or even your pet’s name? For example, my name is built up with Buzz + Py. Buzz is used to feeling messy (one of my traits. To say, my code is not messy) as well as to remark the famous FizzBuzz program while Py is for Python.

What I did first was to write all the names/terms in my mind on Notepad and try to match them. Those words are still saved, and they look like this:

Once you’re done with all those, you must define yourself! Yes, personal branding is all about you.

• What’s my name? (Brand Name)

• What are the colors that define me? (Brand Colours)

• What’s my Profession (Programmer, Developer, or whatever. Feel free to build up your own if you’re a freelancer!)

• How should I sound? Professional or Friendly? (Brand Voice)

• What's a phrase or a sentence that best describes me? (Brand Tagline)

• What do I do mainly? (say coding)

• In what areas do I have expertise?

• What are the other things I do? (maybe your hobbies or other side hustle you make money)

• What are my most unique personal traits?

Remember about the gift I mentioned before? I'm not sure whether it would be disappointing (hopefully not), but here it is— A brand info sheet! Just fill out the form, save it, and keep it yourself for future reference.

Download your information sheet from Google Drive - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KIuZQLP_5uzOTOkcmQakuGgo66Tj-VRr

Let’s take an example. My answers to the above questions are,

• Buzzpy.

• Grey and Blue.

• Python Developer.

• Friendly, Conversational.

• The Buzzy Pythoneer

• Python Programming.

• Data Analysis, Technical Writing.

• Reading, Branding.

• Buzzy (Chilling or messy, stands for both of them), Introverted.

And here it is, my personal brand. Nothing less, nothing more.

2. Start your Blog

What’s better than blogging to tell people who you are? Blog about anything you hold expertise in, whether it is a programming language or it is some kind of technology, and let people understand who you are. Many developers out there have some awesome technical blogs where they share their knowledge and write about their specialties.

If you need to start a free developer blog while getting inspired, Dev Community and Hashnode are the best options! Hashnodes gives you your blog even with a custom domain and saves you a lot of time building up your blog!

3. Participate in Communities:

Communities like Quora, StackOverflow, etc can be your best friends if you intend to create a brand online. Join these communities and try your best to solve the questions of users from your niche. It will not only help you interact with your kind of people but will also improve your problem-solving skills. Sites like Stack Overflow, and GitHub allow developers to work together on projects, which can open a wide opportunity to learn.

4. Reach out to Social Media

I’m an introvert, and I have a really difficult time when it comes to social media. That’s the only reason for me to participate on LinkedIn, as a professional because I care about my stable mind a lot. But I highly recommend you reach out to other social media, especially Twitter (must I say "X"? ). It helps you a lot in building and promoting your brand.

5. Build Your Principles

When it comes to branding, following your principles is important. You must never be a money-hungry person who will do or change anything for a rate. Whether it loses you 1000 dollars, do not cross your line.

For example, if someone asks you to do a review on one of their bad products to increase users and offers you a lot of money to promote it as an excellent product, just say “No, Thanks.” Not like the $1500 they offer, if you get attention for being a fake reviewer and people stop following/ reading your content, it may lose you more than a thousand dollars and your whole brand and effort.

Next Steps 👣

That’s a lot of words! First, thanks for reading until the end. I hope you learned a lot of things and will get started on branding yourself as a developer as soon as possible. Yes, you might be late but late is a lot better than never! Try building your blog if possible, because it’s the best way to get recognition. If you’re not interested in writing, build a portfolio or stand out on Social media!

Until next chillin' Friday, Happy Branding!

Download your information sheet from Google Drive - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KIuZQLP_5uzOTOkcmQakuGgo66Tj-VRr

Did you know the blog "ByteClash : AI vs. Buzzpy"? Every article or tutorial there is like a double take, coming at you from two different angles— the smart side of AI and the friendly touch of a human.

Visit ByteClash : AI vs. Buzzpy
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