The second-biggest dev content problem

Buzz Aldrin. John Landy. Robert Scott.

If you even know their names, it’s in connection to their more famous counterpart.

Buzz Aldrin was the second person to walk on the moon, after Neil Armstrong.

John Landy ran a mile in under four minutes the month after Roger Bannister became the first.

And Robert Scott?

Well, he was the first to reach the south pole and not return.

But he’s still remembered as second to Roald Amundsen.

Second gets a bad rap.

When it comes to dev content, let’s remember both the first and second mistakes you can make:

1. You focus too much on your product.
2. You are too generic in your approach.

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It’s true that Developer Marketing Does Not Exist places much more emphasis on the first. You must turn the attention away from your product in order to find developers who haven’t discovered you yet.

The education over promotion approach has a drawback—and that’s why you want to keep this second problem in mind.

Generic developer education is too far from your product. It might even attract too many developers without much real-world experience. That may be your audience, though it’s often advantageous to reach developers with more specific problems.

Even worse, generic developer education won’t help you stand out. If anyone could publish an article or guide topic… why are you?

I discuss point-of-view in this five-minute podcast episode on Guides.