Hey there 👋. Hashnode is hosting a boot camp from 1 May 2023 to 3 May 2023, with the goal of assisting developers in improving their writing skills. If you're a student who wants to document your development journey or a developer who is looking to get into technical writing, this boot camp is meant for you.
Here is a summary and my learnings of Day 2 of the #HashnodeBootcamp 😊 -
Day 2: Personal Branding and Community Engagement
Two sessions were scheduled for Day 2 and the whole event was moderated by Daniela Passos.
Session 1 - Leveraging Social Media for Monetization - By Nader Dabit
Session 2 - Building Your Personal Brand on Social Media - By Ákos Kőműves
Session 1 - Leveraging Social Media for Monetization
Nader Dabit - a developer, author and teacher.
Nader started the session by giving us a glimpse of what his journey in the development and technical writing world has been. Being a self-taught coder, he started from scratch and went from learning to code in 2014 to writing his first blog post in September 2015. Currently, he is the Director of Developer Relations at Aave. The summary of the session is as follows -
Personal Branding
Find out if - "Your online presence says, who you say, you are."
The perception we have about ourselves is far different from how people know us. We look at ourselves through the lens of years we've spent in this body, but that is not the case for any other person. Similarly, in the online world, you may think that you've explained your brand and profile completely as you've built through the years. But the same cannot be said for a person who is visiting your website for the first time. Hence, you need to keep in check that your online presence aligns with who you say you are.
How Nader improved his personal brand image
Hired someone to review and recommend updates to my online presence.
Clear biography - say who are (or who you want to be)
Do a photoshoot - (Makes you look professional)
Clean, clear, consistent profile picture.
Specialization to some extent - be known for something
Links to more information ( portfolio, GitHub, Twitter, ...)
Always - "Optimise for the time-constrained."
Whatever you create, try to make it as optimized as possible for people to skim through it.
Personal example - A lot of times, I've seen people skip over a long Twitter thread, no matter how useful it is. At the same time, if you break that tweet down and repost it in smaller, bulleted threads, it does well.
When writing, add a summary at the end for people to revise/skim through.
Be Personalized and cater to a Niche
Say which tech stack you cater to. This helps people identify and associate with you accordingly.
Always start with catering to a niche. It shows a more specialized approach and people look up to you for reference/help in that niche.
P.S. - Successful businesses segregate their market by creating child companies that work only on one specific niche. To understand this phenomenon more, read a case study about Xiaomi, RealMe, OnePlus and their parent company.
P.S.S - All the above phone companies have the same parent company, but are divided so that each smaller company works on a specific niche. RealMe is for teenagers, OnePlus is the Premium Android, Xioami is the affordable range, etc.
Therefore catering to a niche definitely pays off.
How to build an online presence -
Build and learn in public.
Be consistent.
Be helpful (without expecting anything in return).
You end up building high-quality relationships.
Be authentic.
Be active and engaging. Find influential people and engage with them.
Backlink social media profiles.
Use rich media content
Nader gave an example of the Twitter recommendation algorithm and how it favors tweets with images and video more than just plain text.
If you feel uncomfortable or cringe, you’re probably doing something right.
Be thoughtful of your formatting. Always make it scannable
Leverage other people's networks and audiences by collaborating and engaging with them.
Content Creation -
Nader shared his strategy for content creation.
Tips by Nader -
Reuse content in multiple formats.
Create resources for yourself.
If something has already been done before, do it different or better.
"Good artists borrow, great artists steal."
You only have to be good at one thing.
Mix things together to create something new.
This was followed by a Q/A round which had an important question asked -
Q - "What are some creative ways for bloggers to monetize their social media presence beyond traditional sponsorships and ads?"
A - Nader gave the idea of being a consultant for tech companies. The best way to become a consultant is to approach them by saying - "You would be the person who would write technical content for them and you would charge X amount every month." This is one of the best approaches to becoming a consultant at a company.
Session 2 - Building Your Personal Brand on Social Media
Ákos Kőműves - Software engineer, ex-CTO, freelancer, writer.
Akos started with the question of "why" should you build a personal brand. He broke down his answer into 4 reasons -
Simple tools
Simple to build
No competition
No rules
Let breakdown each of these with the examples he gave -
Simple tools
The simplest tool we have at our disposal is writing. Writing then transforms into different domains which help us in the longer run. A mind map shared by him on the same -
The quality of your audience is a function of your content quality.
Simple to build
If you cater to these three metrics, you can easily build your brand -
Impressions
Profile Clicks
Decisions
The above picture depicts a crucial deciding factor on if you can convert the profile visit into a follower.
Note - An important tool he recommended for checking impressions is Typefully.
No competition
- The only competition is you. You are building your own brand. Therefore, never forget the person in the brand.
No rules
Copycats.
Gurus.
Algorithm
There are going to be copycats who will steal your content word for word. The advice Akos gives is to not engage with them at all. Instead, ignore them. Engaging with them in any way would only increase traffic to their site.
Dani (our host) goes on to say an important line - "People can steal your tweets, but they can't steal your audience."
- In the end, Akos advises us to enjoy the Positive Sum game.
That was all for Day 2. On Day 3, there is going to be - Monetizing Your Expertise and Exploring Opportunities
- Session 1 - Freelance Writing Opportunities for Developers - by James Q Quick
Looking forward to seeing all of you there. Cheers 😁.
Find me here - 🚀 Aryaman Singh Rana