You may have noticed that I take a lot of screenshots. If it’s funny, intriguing, or otherwise notable, it’s about to get snapped.

Then I give it a quick copy-paste to a friend via text, or maybe in a draft of an email to you.

It would take me a bit to explain the button combo on my phone that takes a screenshot. Yet my muscle memory has no problem. Click! Another browser window or app screen is captured.

But there’s another habit that’s a little less noticeable.

After almost every screenshot, I crop the image. Sometimes I take a lot out to really zoom in on the action.

On my phone, there’s something I do almost every time…

I move the top of a mobile screenshot down just a few pixels to avoid the command bar.

Do you do this, too?

I’ve seen enough un-cropped to know many of us don’t think at all about it.

But I’ve also seen comments like this, so I know I’m not the only one noticing:

A friend once gave a talk to a packed room. While projecting his laptop, he switched to his email. The entire room gasped at the thousands of unread messages in his inbox.

So, I crop out the time of my screenshots and hide the battery in the “red zone” (or worse, yellow power saver mode). And I do it with the same muscle memory as the screenshot itself.

But do I take pride in this “attention to detail”? Not really.

This sort of “perfect screenshot” is fine when you want to send an image without causing distraction. When it seeps into your content—and I’m talking metaphorically about your work with developers here, not just actual screenshots—it can be dangerous.

In fact, if you try to tell too perfect a story with developers, it might backfire. Like easy and simple, it glosses over too much reality and erodes trust.

It can feel unnatural for a marketer to admit a product or solution is short of perfect. But developers want the truth because otherwise, they might discover it halfway through a project.

A developer relations department, if you have one, is great for this reality check. They know the product and have found its rough edges. They also know the alternatives, which may be even more difficult.

​Developer relations can write some of your best technical content because they’ve lived the developer problems.

Don’t crop out the truth in your developer content. Include it and build trust that will keep them engaged.

I’d like to help your dev rel team tap into their superpower and create great content that will attract more of the right developers. Enroll your team in the Developer Relations Content Accelerator.