Why you need to promote yourself as a developer

I want to talk about promoting yourself. Why I think you should do that, and some suggestions on how you should do it. Now, let's start with why you should do it.

It's very unlikely that you are going to just magically be discovered one day. Now, there could be any number of reasons you want that to happen. Maybe you don't. In which case, great, you should not read this post.

You need to be discovered and you need to be the one to make that happen. Why does that matter? In my case, and I suspect many others, it has been my reputation and being out there in public that has really progressed my career from one job to the next.

Okay. I acknowledge there may be a certain amount of luck there. But if I had not been out there promoting myself, and I don't mean promoting in some arrogant way, I mean promoting as if you were a product, because, at the end of the day, you are your own product, your skills are your product.

Now, if I hadn't been out there doing it, It would've been a lot harder. I would have to have applied to a lot of job positions. I'm here to tell you now all of the jobs that I've had and all the people that I've worked with have been because they came to me.

I think it is been maybe 20 years or so, something like that since I last. Applied for a position without them coming to me first. I don't mean that in some big-headed way. I mean, to use that to emphasize to you that because of a lot of the things that I put out there helped make that happen.

People have recommended me, or they came across my work and wanted to start a conversation with me. These are the reasons that I think you need to go ahead and promote yourself because it is just very rare that you will be discovered. I'm not going to say it won't happen, but if nobody knows where to find you or you are not on the internet posting something somewhere it will be a lot harder.

Okay. Now let's get into the details.

First of all, you should network now. Yes, I know. We all stop and go, oh gosh networking. But networking is different these days than it used to be. Now let me say, first of all, you cannot beat in-person networking. That face-to-face where people get to see you, get to know you, they can pick up on your intention.

A lot of these things don't come across online, so where possible, find yourself a group to join. I remember years ago, I went to a Swift group for a couple of meetings and then they disbanded, which was a real shame because they were nice folks. It was just great to hang out somewhere, have a cup of coffee and talk about whatever anyone wanted to talk about, it was just fantastic.

So in person. Is the number one option. Of course, COVID has made that a lot more difficult. Things are getting better, but you still have to be careful.

If you cannot do it in person or you don't feel like that's the thing for you. Okay.

There are so many places you can go, including creating your own Internet home. I'll get into that a little later on when I talk about some creative ways to promote yourself.

You have to accept that it's going to be very hard at first, okay? Especially if like a lot of developers, you are introverted. It's gonna be a problem. At the end of the day, it's something you will have to get used to.

The other thing is if you are just starting out and you don't have a history that will make it even harder. That's something you can solve. How do you solve that?

There is no magic answer. You don't solve it overnight. What you do to start solving it is start doing what I'm suggesting today.

You start it today. The sooner you start doing these things, the sooner it's out there and you start building that legacy.

Always remember you are promoting yourself as if you're a product. Be polite to people, even if they're not polite to you, right?

It's not as painful as you imagine it's going to be. Remember, most folks out there want you to succeed and they will be nice to you, and they're gonna want to help you, and they're gonna want to help promote you. Just as much as you should want to help them.

That's another thing, be known for helping people.

Don't underestimate yourself, you probably know a lot more than you realize, and I guarantee you, there are things you know that other people don't and they would be interested in them. Putting yourself out there and putting content out will again help your reputation and help you promote yourself and people will remember you for it.

This can lead to so many different things. I have seen this lead to invites, like myself and other folks onto podcasts, conferences, talks, and so much more. It can also lead to the possibility that people will pay you for what you know.

What are some of the creative ways to start promoting yourself?

I've got a few suggestions that I'm gonna talk about, and I think these are some great ways to get started.

First of all, number one is blog posts. Believe it or not, contrary to what the internet wants you to think. blogging is still very much worth it, we all read them when trying to solve problems or research.

I recommend a two-fold approach. First, you should have a place that is your home on the Internet, something that you control the fate of. So when the next social network fails, you do not have to do anything to save your content.

This is a huge deal. People will get to know where to find you, make this the place that everything else jumps off from. One place to tell folks about regardless of the content type.

This content can also be placed elsewhere referencing back to your home as being the original canonical post place. This enables you to take advantage of an existing site. For example, dev.to which is a great developer community.

The other option, be a guest blogger for someone else. That's happened to me. I've been invited to write on other people's sites.

Discord is another option, I have created DevClub, a Discord server with some friends of mine, and we are having a blast in there. You can click that link to join it.

It is all about a positive attitude. There's no judgment of how good someone is or bullying, we have a zero-tolerance policy, and so far, we have never had to use it. We have folks from all walks of life, experience, and skill level.

Along with Discord, there are plenty of other places like Slack, Facebook, and many other networks with groups you can try out to find one that works for you.

So think about all these. Yes, they all take time, but I think it's crucial that you put time aside to do this. It is imperative that people get to know you in these, communities. Don't just take from these communities, give back.

Another option, get yourself on a podcast or other media. If you want to come on the UIBuzz podcast, we can make that happen. I am open to any development topics and you are more than welcome.

Reach out to me at PeterWitham.com/contact. I would dearly love to talk with folks.

The last one is an example that I do once a week, a live stream. I have a live stream on Twitch. You can go to twitch.tv/Compile swift.

I have a wonderful chat room full of nice friendly and fun folks.
Peter Witham on his live streams

Yes, it was terrifying when I first started because I'm sitting there thinking, oh my gosh, everybody is judging what I'm doing, and I'm doing terribly.

But you know what? After a while, you realize that's not what this is about. If I base the success of my streaming on how much good code and good work I've got done, it would be a failure, but. The critical part is when I realized it's about the community. It's about the folks in the chatroom, the folks watching.

At first, you are not going to have anyone watching. Don't panic! Everyone starts out that way. Act as if people are watching. Yes, it's weird to talk to a camera when you know there's no one watching. Do it anyway because eventually, there will be folks. Remember, some people prefer to watch replays because they are in different time zones.

The point of a live stream is not only to put out the content but to interact with people. That's what I love, and we have such a great laugh in my chatroom.

On whatever your streaming platform of choice, interact with folks, watch other people's streams, get involved in their chat rooms, and be a part of their community.

I hope this has been helpful. I wanted to give you some ideas you can use today.

I hope this inspires you. Be inspired to go do this. Give it a try. If you do any of these things, Reach out to me. I would love to visit your content.

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