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Discussion on: What do you wish you knew about Developer Relations?

 
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Mary Thengvall

That's a big question 😂 I cover a good amount of how to get started in my book, but I give some basic suggestions in a recent blogpost as well: developer.okta.com/blog/2019/04/30...

Always start with listening: to your internal stakeholders (people who care about the developer community & the program you're building); to your community members (what are their true needs? what are they interested in? where do they go for relevant information?); and to your customers (what are their pain points? what issues do they have with your product? how can you best help them?).

Regarding how to integrate it with social media, start by finding the influencers in your field. Who's making waves? Who's engaging with folks on the relevant topics? Follow them and start engaging with the conversations: asking questions, retweeting their questions, complimenting them on their accomplishments, etc. Focus on getting to know them first and talking about yourself second. Once people know that you care and that you're there for their benefit, they'll start to care about what you have to say. Jeremy Meiss says it well in this tweet: twitter.com/IAmJerdog/status/10573...