While going through older stuff saved in Pocket, I found a talk titled “Building A Content Marketing Machine” by Hiten Shah, which he gave at HeavyBit, a company accelerator targeting developer-focused startups. While the video is a few years old, I think there are a lot of good points made around content marketing for developers that still apply today.

If you look at the traffic for developer content such as blog posts, organic search is the primary source. Social media like Twitter is fantastic for engaging with developers but typically not a huge source of traffic. Hence, SEO (search engine optimization) is essential, but there are no shady tricks in SEO anymore. The only formula that works is to produce both quantity and quality and be patient. Content is a long game.

You should always be aware of your audience. Targeting developers at startups and CTOs at enterprises is entirely different. And you have to remember that the primary purpose of content is to provide something of value for them, not just, for example, show off your company culture.

Also, don’t just invest in content production, but also promotion. Influencer marketing works well for developers, so reach out to relevant people directly. Repurposing content in different formats, such as a blog post about a conference talk or a podcast, is worth it because you can increase the reach of your content without investing in something new every time.

Finally, the outsourcing of content production is possible. Hiten gave the example of Kissmetrics, who, at some point, had 99% of blog posts written by guest authors.

To summarize, you need both quantity and quality in technical content, tailored to your audience, and you can tap into external talents to create it. And guess what, I provide precisely this kind of service through my consulting business. Contact me to learn more!