Measuring success in Developer Relations is always one of the most interesting questions or challenges. Every organization does it differently – from measuring how many stickers were handed out, how many Twitter followers one has, to how many people attended a conference talk, to how many API calls were made. There are many more things you can measure. Every approach has its pros and cons and every organization will use an approach that helps reach their business goal(s).
I listened to a great Under the hood of Developer Marketing podcast with Jesse Davis:
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where Jesse shared that a metric we should care about is how to help the developer next.
I thought about this more. Could success in Developer Relations be measured by how many developers did we help? What I like about this measure (or KPI – Key Performance Indicator) is that it’s not one specific thing (like how many people attended an event) but it encompasses the true measure and value of Developer Relations in my opinion: how many developers did we help?
Now, what does it mean? Well, I believe helping developers encompasses many things.
How many developers did we help by answering questions sent via email?
How many developers did we help by answering their questions on a community forum, Twitter or any other social network?
How many developers did we help by answering questions and sharing solution benefits at a conference booth?
How many developers did we help with registering for a new developer account?
How many developers did we help by showing how to make the very first API call?
How many developers did we help by sending them a tutorial or an article that will help them solve their problem or explain how something works?
How many developers did we help by publishing a new tutorial on a blog?
How many developers did we help by recording a video and publishing it our YouTube channel?
How many developer did we help by connecting them with marketing department, sales, product, engineering or human resources? There is a superb article on this topic by Mary Thengvall.
How many developers did we help learn something new at a hands-on workshops or meetup?
How many developers did we help by doing a technical demo?
How many developers did we help by showing an example of integrating our solution with a 3rd part API?
How many developers did we help when they searched for a question on your forum and found the answer?
How many developers did we help by sharing whether a solution is the right fit for the problem they are trying to solve?
How many developers did we help when they stopped by to talk with us and ask questions after a talk at a conference or meetup?
How many developers did we help by recommending what to try and learn next for their career?
How many developers did we help by making them awesome and super heroes?
How many developers did we make more successful?
There are probably many more.
You might still need to specifically measure some of the things listed above and some might be easy to measure but, I believe that how many developers did we help is a very good way to measure success.
What do you think?
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