Top 5 places to post developer content

A few weeks ago, we published an in-depth article on content distribution strategy, covering everything from creating a step-by-step plan and selecting distribution channels to types of content and tactics for increasing visibility. You need to check out that comprehensive guide. This article will focus on the channels that have proven effective for us so you can achieve similar results.

I get this question a lot. You’ve created amazing content for developers but are unsure where to put it. You know, publishing it on the company blog isn’t enough to reach the right audience. It also takes a while before you see Search Engine Optimization (SEO) gains - if at all you see any.

What do you do? In a nutshell, here are 5 places to share or post developer content you’ve created.

1. Internal and external communities
2. Top developer blogs and publications
3. Newsletters
4. Dev.to, Hashnode, and Hackernoon
5. LinkedIn and Twitter

For this post, we focus on written developer content; however, the strategies also apply to any other form of developer content.

A bit of housekeeping before we go into the details. Lose the mindset that sharing developer content you created is a form of marketing. It may be, but make that an afterthought. You want to help with the content you create genuinely. If you aren’t helping anyone with the content, then it shouldn’t be created in the first place.

With that out of the way, every tip you’ll read next is aligned with the mental model of getting your content to someone (a developer or otherwise) who needs help. We’ll start with the channel having the highest value.

1. Communities

Technical communities are a gold mine if you know how to use them properly, especially when sharing useful information and getting engagement. The problem with users or developer marketers are:

• Dumping the link in a ‘share-anything’ channel
• Being a ‘selective member’ looking to take from the community rather than give.

To fix the content dump problem, share content in communities with enough context and provide a brief summary that makes readers want to click that precious link. Ask yourself, ‘Why should anyone care about this article?’. When you share the post, mention a community member who’s encountered the problem. Talk about the post as a solution to their problem (We extensively discussed this tactic in our article on creating engaging developer content. Add it to your reading list). A by-product of doing this correctly is you get engagement both on the post and in the community.

To the second point, sharing the content with context and a summary is effective if you’re a regular member and contributor to the community. Other members will likely engage with the post if you’re familiar with it. In the same way people support their friends, community members are more likely to read stuff from someone they seemingly know in the community.

Seek communities by performing a Google search and following recommendations until you find engaging developer watering holes. Communities of hot open-source projects are great, too.

2. Top blogs and publications

Publications like The New Stack accept post submissions for DevOps and Cloud Native technologies. Due to their website's high traffic and newsletter engagement, sharing your content with them is a great way to get it in front of the right people. Moreover, the website has a very strong SEO authority. You can see how one of our clients’ articles ranked instantly within days of publishing.

Similarly, other blogs and publications exist for various software domains. You can do an extensive Google search or use a tool like SEMRush to find top blogs by traffic or start with competitors.

3. Newsletters

Newsletters are another gold mine. Find Newsletters with good open and click rates. Newsletters that are a pseudo-community work as well. Ask for the publisher’s open and click rate stats to try and predict performance. As with sharing content in a community, you want to provide a captivating hook or summary with a link to the post. Beehiiv is a good way to find potential newsletters to sponsor.

4. Ditch your blog

Yes, you read right. Your blog isn’t always the best place to publish content if you want it seen. Platforms like Dev.to, Hashnode, and Hackernoon have greater domain ranking and ‘SEO juice,’ so publishing your content there makes it much more likely to rank high for the desired keywords. These platforms also have communities with devoted members. You should leverage that.

To publish the content on your blog simultaneously, you can also publish it with a canonical URL to the original post on dev.to. This way, search engines know to ignore duplicate content. Over time, as your domain reputation grows, switch it so you publish the original content on your blog and the duplicate with a canonical link for the dev.to community.

5. Social media

This is the most common one, so maybe that’s why I put it last. We share every piece of content created on social media. You need to understand your audience and what channels work for developer content. Devs hang out on Twitter. That’s the one place to share helpful content. LinkedIn works if you’re trying to reach folks in engineering leadership, e.g., VPs, CTOs, Directors, etc.

Explore images or a short video clip alongside the content, something of a teaser if it’s a tutorial. You can write a kickass post caption and a matching summary if it isn't. Again, ask, ‘Why should anyone care about reading this post when they could have moved on to memes?”

At Hackmamba, we’ve worked hard to build a distribution pipeline for our client's content; this way, we help developers and get the content seen. You can assemble a list of channels that work and pass each content piece through them. If you can’t when you work with us, we’ll pass your content through ours for free. Talk to us today. We’re always happy to help.

You’re helping a stuck developer out there when you create developer content. These 5 methods give you the highest chance of getting this content in front of them. Then, developers reward you with engagement, sharing it with their friends and buying your product on a good day.