Many of the developers believe that they are immune to the need of marketing/branding themselves. As a developer your job is to create ultimate applications, right? After all you are not a celebrity or some rockstar! But isn’t it better to be in demand for fruitful consultations, speaking and writing? Well, all this is possible if you are able to create a personal brand!
\nIn this article I am going to focus on why as a developer you should focus on personal branding, how it is going to help your job and career and finally, will guide you on how you can also create a personal brand. First thing first, let’s start with what is personal branding.
\nWhat is personal branding?
\n![\"Apple](\"/19a1cce232eecdc839a68b902e3eb968/Apple-logo-248x300.webp\"){kind=logo}
Do you recognize this logo? Well, Of course you do! But have you ever wondered how come you recognized this logo without even a name? Well, you recognized it because the brand is so strong that without even a proper title, you are able to recognize it and that’s what branding do.
The concept of personal branding is quite similar to that of company branding. Personal branding is all about thinking yourself as a brand. It is about showing people who you are and what is your passion. When you think about some specific programming language, your mind goes back to some specific names associated with that language, who are either the father of that language or have done some amazing work in that field, right?
\nTo get the more clear idea, here is what Paul Irish, the front end developer of Google Chrome team, has to say on the concept of personal branding -
\n“Personal branding is the art of consistently presenting, online and offline, the essence of how you stand out from the crowd.”
\nPersonal branding is all about you and only you :
\nand more! Personal branding is basically about everything that defines you from the languages you are expertize to the blogs you write.
\nWhy you should focus on personal branding?
\nPersonal branding is no longer an option, but it has become crucial for everyone. After all we are living in the digital world where it is simpler to reach to the next level. So it’s not exactly about being the rockstar but maybe it is. May be it is about becoming popular! May be it is about getting that power. Here I am presenting you three key reasons why personal branding is important for you-
\nNo job is permanent!
\nAnother harsh reality! No matter how much your company loves you but you know no job is forever. So be prepared! You don’t know when the situation changes. As a developer personal branding matters when you are looking to change your job. You want your employers to hire you not only as a good developer but also as an innovative leader. To make that possible, you need to cultivate a personal brand that can highlight your value to your potential employers.Sky's the limit!
\nThe process of learning has no end. While creating personal brand, you meet many people from your niche. You interact with them, share your knowledge, learn from them, discuss ideas and all this will give you the level of expertise that wouldn’t have been possible otherwise. Doesn’t matter how you want to improve your career, personal branding is the key!How to manage your personal brand?
\nAs a developer, breaking through the glass ceiling demands much more than excellent programming skills. Cultivating a strong personal brand can really help you out. GET VISIBILITY is all I want to say!
\nYou might have the best expertise in certain technology, you might have designed an amazing product but all this is meaningless if nobody can see you. Here are some tips on how you can get visibility :
\nTry your hand at blogging :
\nBlogging is an amazing way to tell people who you are. Blog about anything you hold expertize in, whether it is a programming language or it is some kind of technology, let people understand who you actually are. There are many developers out there who have some awesome technical blogs where they share their knowledge and write about their specialities.For inspiration you can have a look at the blog of John Resig, the creator and founder of jQuery. Another tech blog champion is Scott Hanselman. Make sure to have a look on his popular blogs www.hanselman.com, hanselminutes, etc.
![\"blogging](\"/0f8f0de8ed9264985c39b11fc2110b33/blogging-for-personal-branding.webp\")
Stick to one topic, you are best at and select the blogging platform that suits you like Wordpress, Tumblr, Blogspot, etc. Post informative content on regular basis and soon you will have a huge audience waiting for your content and engaging with you. Posting two to three informative blog is enough to keep you in demand. Also there are some specific sites likewww.asp.net where you can submit articles to gain immense popularity.
Embrace Social Media :
\nYou might have heard that Facebook and Twitter are all about wasting time, but let me tell you this is not at all true. Social media provides you a great opportunity to build networks. It is must to get visibility on various social media networks if you want to be found by people who share same niche as you.
\n![\"social](\"/0bcf08775ca2ce3cfb3bb8dcc35e5bc2/Social-media-for-personal-branding.webp\")
\nThere are various ways how you can track your brand on social media. My personal favorite is Google Alert which notifies whenever people are talking about me or my projects. While some times they are talking about the work I have done, sometimes they also complaint which helps me understand where I am wrong. There are many others, like on Twitter, you can use Tweetdeck . Apart from that, create a strong persona on Linkedin, Facebook, Google+, etc. Interact with people, reply to their queries and become social media champion.
\nSome popular developers who are social media champions as well include Scott Hanselman, John Resig, etc
Participate in Communities:
\nCommunities like Quora, Stackoverflow, Warrior Forum, etc can be your best friends if you are intending to create brand online. Join these communities and try your best to solve the queries of users from your niche. It will not only help you interact your kind of people but will also improve your problem solving skills. Sites like Stack Overflow, GitHub allow users to work together on projects, that can open a wide opportunity to learn.
\nContribute to Open source or start Open source :
\nAnother great way to cultivate personal brand is to contribute to open source or start open source. While contributing to an open source can be an amazing experience it will earn you recognition among your fellow community. Also you can start open source. If you are getting difficulties to start open source, have a look at this interesting article.
\nWhat I’m trying to say is
\nMaybe you don’t want to become a rockstar developer or you are happy with your current job, but still there is a huge difference between doing the job and doing the job in excellent way. After all, you have worked hard to be where you are today and you deserve to get recognized for it. So why tomorrow, start now and reach the next step.
\n","frontmatter":{"date":"September 23, 2016","updated_date":null,"title":"Personal Branding For Developers: Why and How?","tags":["Branding"],"coverImage":{"childImageSharp":{"fluid":{"aspectRatio":1,"src":"/static/cb6590bb3c439f5b33ab6c250865863c/e7487/Personal-Branding-For-Developers-150x150.webp","srcSet":"/static/cb6590bb3c439f5b33ab6c250865863c/e7487/Personal-Branding-For-Developers-150x150.webp 150w","sizes":"(max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px"}}},"author":{"id":"Sreekant","github":null,"avatar":null}}}},{"node":{"fields":{"slug":"/engineering/social-network-branding-guidelines/"},"html":"I am here to tell you that Facebook, Google, Twitter, or LinkedIn aren’t going to be happy when they find out that you changed their icon color to green. But, hey at least you didn’t distort the logo.
\nHello and welcome to another segment of me telling you things that you need to know but will ignore at some point. Let’s get started.
\nSocial Login and Social Sharing are everywhere. Some people even combine it with with their User Registration. There’s no surprise that on every website you go to, you’ll see either well designed social icons or just plain ugliness. We can’t blame them, they want their icons to be unique and eye catching.
\n![\"1\"](\"/fb56011614f4224e2ef4c45c93a08edf/1.webp\")
Beauty!
But, the universe is full of holes inside an “A” whom sometimes destroy a thing of beauty.
\n![\"2\"](\"/80fcb505560834197a9f54513c4af0bd/2.webp\")
Just. Stop!
Then there’s the “I use my own brand color” kind of people.
\n![\"3\"](\"/81faeb78b4a333f7fb4d9e1de1f812ef/3.webp\")
So, what’s happening here? What’s the orange f? Does that stands for forangebook? *badum tsss* I’ll see myself out.
\nChanging the branding color is a big no no for them. You’ll be surprised how strict those social branding guidelines can be. Yet, we still violate them.
\nOne thing we need to realize is, we don’t own these icons. The companies still own them. So, for your convenience I searched the interwebs to gather most of the things you need to remember for social network branding guidelines.
\nLet’s start with the most used social network, Facebook and their “ f ” logo. They’re pretty straightforward, as long as you don’t modify the “ f ” logo’s design and color, you’re good to go. To simplify this more; don’t make the facebook logo look like it’s been scratched by a chicken and made it bleed too much that it turns red.
\n![\"4\"](\"/4cc1938d041a582a519a9164609a6129/4.webp\")
Quick, somebody call 911!
\nTwitter branding is a little bit complicated. Probably because they had multiple drastic changes in their logo design.
\n ![\"5\"](\"/94d97c64dc8dfecf6a3220980bf84ee7/5.webp\")
Nonetheless, it’s simple.
On Google+ (yes “ + “ not “plus“), they prefer that you don’t change or remake their icon. But if you must, you can style it to match your design, as long as you don’t...
\nIf you’re using the icon with the title, You should use “Google” without the plus (word and sign), because… well… that’s redundant.
\nLinkedIn is kind of ridiculous with their branding guidelines. They still have the same drill with no distorting or changing the color and so forth. But there’s one thing you won’t expect, you cannot change the radius or the box. ![\"6\"](\"/13e5f4760a9c17550d227d85a8917ab1/6.webp\")
We’re all going to LinkedIn Jail!
\nKeep it to a minimal radius, like 2px. That means no circle, square, iOS style rounded icons — hold the phone, did LinkedIn just violate their own branding guidelines? Tsk tsk, LinkedIn. Breaking your own rules, eh?
\nWhat about the other 30+ social icons? Well, by now you’ve probably seen the pattern here. No? Well, let me break it down for you.
\nBut, who am I to tell you what to do? Just do what makes you happy and hope to god they don’t catch you. Keep in mind too that these branding guidelines are part of your user experience and affect your users impression of the site.
\nLet me know in the comments if there’s a specific guideline that I miss.
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