Translated by: Zhuang Qi

Public APIs create value for both providers and consumers only when they are used. This has led to an increase in the area of attracting and supporting developers in recent years. Individuals and teams with developer relationships can help developers discover and make better use of APIs and other technical tools. These roles were once reserved for large enterprises, but today developer relationships are common in mid-sized enterprises and even startups.

Here, I’ll cover three areas where I often interact with the developer community:

1️ Developer Experience

2️ Associate developer relationship

3️ Associate Developer Marketing

You may find that there are other forms of description for them, but that doesn’t stop them from being at the heart of developer support, and they play a vital role in attracting and retaining developers.

| developer experience: you how to guide the developer to trip

When developers find that your API meets their immediate needs, they’ll probably try it out. At this point, your novice developer guide will determine if they can get started quickly. The beginner developer guide is your earliest interaction with the developer, leaving them with the initial developer experience of the product. Product development guidance is one of the key factors in determining whether developers will continue to use your API.

This laissez-faire developer support model requires a number of factors. Product decisions, UI elements, and technical education need to be combined. If you can figure out why and how to use your API, you can help developers achieve their goals.

A robust developer experience product makes it possible to answer developer questions quickly and help them take the next step. Documentation in various forms is one of the most valuable tools in communicating with developers. As such, you need to provide developers with various types of documentation that will allow them to develop smoothly. You need to ensure that all of the following conditions are met (if applicable):

✅ Getting Started

✅ tutorial

✅ the latest reference guide

✅ example application

For example, Deepgram addresses developers’ needs on its documentation site:

For those new to DeepGram, it provides a guide to getting started. Full references are useful for experienced developers to quickly scan the content and check the syntax. In the end, the Getting Started guide and application examples are combined to provide a complete experience for first time developers.

Of course, the specifics of the documentation will vary from API to API. This is a great opportunity to engage with your users, to leverage your product knowledge and to customize the documentation by understanding their actual needs. Make sure you avoid the following 10 common developer experience mistakes.

✅ There is no guide to getting started

There is no clear development process for ✅

✅ Paid services

✅ Excessively cumbersome registration process

✅ has no sample application

✅ Limited programming language support

✅ Outdated API reference documentation

✅ is not keen on blogging

✅ has a poor browsing experience

✅ Mini (or non-existent) developer panel

While the self-service developer experience is great, remember that developers are people, too. In many cases, direct interaction and support can unlock their full potential. Let’s take a look at how developer relationships amplify developer support.

| developer relations: programmers to help programmers

Communication is a key element in novice developer coaching, but it doesn’t have to be a part of every part of the developer experience. While the self-service development experience is great, it’s also nice to have a friendly face to help users solve problems that they haven’t been able to solve for a long time. There is no documentation that can cover it all, and there is no human empathy. At this point, developer relationships can fill the void.

Some common titles you’ll see in developer relationships include:

✅ Developer Advocate

✅ Developer Evangelist

✅ Community Manager

The exact role may vary depending on the title and organization, but in general, the role is to help developers succeed. Google pioneered the position of “Ambassador Advocate”, which also involves bringing product feedback from outside the company (being an internal ambassador for external developers). “Evangelist,” by contrast, looks outwards to publicize the company’s latest technology. In practice, some ambassadors may be primarily responsible for advocacy, while some evangelists will bring back insights into their products.

While developer relations look like customer support in the case of novice developer mentoring, it’s just a form of communication. Developer relations professionals also help developers by attending events, hosting online meetings for programmers, and joining the open source community, among other things.

Even with the integration of your API, developers are likely to encounter questions that the documentation can’t answer. This may be related to their particular development situation or industry. In a traditional development scenario, developers might try to find answers to StackOverflow that don’t know if they’re right or wrong. But the presence of a developer ambassador, developer evangelist, or community manager can quickly give developers the right direction and a useful perspective.

If you manage developer relationships throughout the development process, it is important that you take the necessary steps to maintain them. Bringing developers together in the community is a great way to both help developers and maintain developer relationships. Of course these communities can be self-created, such as product-specific forums, or they can take advantage of off-the-shelf platforms such as Twitter and Reddit. Twilio also gives us an insight into how developers communicate.

Each community platform has its own advantages, and it is not necessary to use one platform to the exclusion of others. With an existing platform, you can reach developers who don’t know your product yet and can solve their problems. With a community centered around your product, you can create a rich and lively conversation for developers who are already using your product.

As you can see, it’s important to communicate with developers, but only if they know that your product can help them solve their problems. Let’s take a look at what can be done to help developers know that a product exists.

Marketing: | developers to look for your technical audience

Let developers know you exist before they play the product for the first time or ask an ambassador a question. As in any field, marketing can help you find an audience. But unlike in other fields, most marketing campaigns are frowned upon by developers, so you need to do it with awe in mind.

Fortunately, most developers improve their skills by constantly learning new things. Before they touch the product, they can know the knowledge brought by the product can help them improve their ability. Then developers may not have the promotional messages to reject the product, but will accept them.

Some common and effective marketing strategies for developers are:

✅ events and web conferences

✅ Content Marketing

✅ Community sponsorship

You can use either of the above methods in places where developers are often present.

When you attend or host an event, bring something new to the developers. Help them learn about new technologies, or help them better understand how current technologies work. It is important to keep a low profile when promoting your products, to minimize the presence of your products, and to communicate and discuss specific solutions with developers.

You can do the same thing with SEO-focused content marketing and advertising-focused community sponsorship. Show that you’re important and developers will be more than happy to accept you. Use other strategies, such as Retargeting and Email newsletters, to maintain visibility.

For example, the Snowflake cloud database aggregates information into this email:

Here’s Snowflake’s marketing case study of solving a specific problem. During the Q&A session, there is an opportunity to ask questions of the product technical experts (perhaps the developer relations team). Then bundle all those resources into content that will attract more developers to their platform in the future.

Of course, if you want to bundle these resources into a framework, it will give developers a better experience and the opportunity to get close to the expert team. The strength of a product’s support for developers determines whether developers will continue to use the product over the long term. When designing a product, take a look at Hoss’s Developer Center, which not only hosts developer documentation, but also provides a complete developer support experience.