Personal Branding for Developers

Edin Kapić

Edin Kapić

www.edinkapic.com

@ekapic

[ˈedin ˈka:pit ͡ɕ ]

What Will You Learn Today?

• Why should you market yourself?

• Building a brand

• Your blog

• Using social networks

• Speaking

• Writing

• Summary

Why Should You MarketYourself?

Marketing....A Nasty Word?

• I think that marketing is bad

• I want my work to speak for me

• I don’t want to brag aboutwhat I do

• I don’t want to marketmyself

• Marketing can be donebadly

• But we’re not a meritocracy

• But I don’t want to project a wrong image either

• But I do, all the time

MARKETING

someone who NEEDS something

connecting

someone who PROVIDES something

with

You already market yourself

• With your CV

• In your interviews

• In your interactions with other people

• Every time you want to convince somebody to do something

• But, do you choose what do you project to other people?

Personal Branding

• Choosing the message you send

• Choosing the image you project

• Reaching more effectively and to more people

• Making an impact

(and expose a subset of yourself)

Why should you investinto a personal brand?

You can be the best developer in the world

but if nobody knows about you

you’ll never reach your true potential

Specialize your brand

Be a big fish in a small pond

But “I am not goodenough to

market myself”

“I am faking it”

Building a Brand

What is a Brand?

• A logo?

• A name?

• A color?

• A theme?

•A set of expectations about a product or a service

•Everything associated with a product, including its symbolism and experiences

Examples of brands

Examples of developer personal brands

What makes up a brand?

Message

Visuals

Consistency

Exposure

Message

• What is your unique point of view?

• What are your values?

• Why are you different?

• What are you offering?

• Specialize, specialize, specialize

“I help and inspire companies and teams to deliver their projects andoptimize their work using SharePoint/Office 365 technology in aneffective way”

Visuals

• Logo

• Colours

• Fonts

• Style

Consistency

• Meeting the expectations, every time

• Helps to keep your messageclear

• The most overlookedcomponent of personal branding in developers

Exposure

• Repeated exposure is whatmakes your brand stick

• You get exposure by usingdifferent channels

The Brand Lifecycle

Build Plan

Expose

Measure

Repeat

How to build a brand?

Pick a niche

Pick a message

Refine the message into tagline and

elevator pitch

Create your visuals

How to spread your brand?

EXECUTE YOUR PLAN

Consistence Monitor your metrics

ACTION PLAN

Pick your channelsMake baseline

metricsEstablish deadlines

Establish milestones

STRATEGY AND GOALSWhere do you want to be

in X years?Which is your desired

situation?What is your end objective

with your brand?

Example

• Niche: “C++ Windows driver development”

• Message: “I help companies shorten their driver development time by mentoring their teams and reviewing their code”

• Tagline: “Your driver problem solver”

• Elevator pitch: “Your company does Windows drivers? I save you on average 75.000 € in development cost by mentoring your team and reviewing your code.”

Example

• Visuals:

• Channels• Blog www.driversheriff.com

• Twitter @DriverSheriff

• YouTube Driver Wild West Screencasts

• Mailing list Driver Sheriff Roundup

• Goals: Get 1000 subscribers in 6 monthsGet 5 leads per month

DriverSherif

f

Your Blog

Your Blog

• It is the channel that you own and fully control

• You should provide useful content aligned with your message

• Think about SEO

Your Blog = Your Business Card

• Prospective recruiters can know you better

• Clients can find and reach you

• You can convert your visitors into customers

Secret Recipe for a Successful Blog

But “Nobody is going to read it”

“I don’t knowwhat to write

about”

Using Social Networks

Social Networks

• Extra channels for your message

• Growing and nurturing your network

• Same principles apply:• Add value

• Be consistent

• Apply branding

Which ones?

•Twitter•LinkedIn•StackOverflow•SlideShare•Facebook•Pinterest•Google+

Tools to Manage Social Networks

Speaking

Speaking? Really?

• Speaking is a very powerful, direct connection with your audience

• Builds your personal brand very quickly

Speaking Interaction Trust

How to start?

Local usergroups

• Meetings

• Code Camps

• Hackathons

Specializedconferences

• Local

• International

Global conferences

• International

But“I am afraid of

speaking in públic”

Writing

Writing

• “He/she wrote a book on thatsubject”

• Writing gives us credibility as an

• Slow-paced, in-depth channel for message

What to write?

Technical articles BooksWhitepapers

Additional considerations

• You’re not going to make (much) money out of publishing

• You can sell premium content such as videos

Summary

• “How do you want to be known”

• It’s not about selling, it’s aboutcommunicating

• 4 key brand ingredients: message, visuals, consistency, exposure

• Make a plan, keep it going

Personal Branding for Developers

Questions?

¿Preguntas?

Preguntes?

Perguntas?

Domande?Galdeak?

Fragen?