Ask HN: Best ways of marketing your tech skills without using social media?

[burhanrashid52]

By marketing, I mean setting up your personal brand. Most of the developers I see nowadays use social media extensively to market their work. This is really a great way to do it. I did it for years and got huge rewards out of it.

However, I lost interest in social media because it is mostly algorithm-driven. Content that is not catchy or controversial does not get much attention, and I don’t want to fall into that trap.

So now I am looking for some alternative ways of marketing my work without using social media. Some of the ideas I found are:

1. Newsletter/Substack (You own it and have legitimate readers)

2. GitHub (Your code speaks)

3. Helping on community forums like Stack Overflow, Discord, etc.

The only issue with the above is that they are very slow to grow, and I don’t get much interaction on those platforms. I don’t expose myself to other people's content, which I also find useful on other social media. The social aspect is obviously much less. Also, most recruiters or people who are looking for talent use LinkedIn and Twitter to find people.

Hence, I am looking for the best alternative marketing strategy for software engineers without using social media.

[drakonka]

I think that depends on the end goal with the marketing. What are you looking to achieve exactly? For example: getting a job, getting funding, getting attention for an open-source project?

I've never really thought about it for myself. Most people who contact me about jobs do so through word-of-mouth, LinkedIn (where I don't post anything aside from keeping history up to date), or sometimes through my (low-traffic) personal blog. I never felt like I was missing out on work by not being a tech "influencer" or something like that. Do you feel like a LinkedIn profile with a nice history of your work isn't enough for what you're seeking?

[burhanrashid52 → drakonka]

As I said above, the goal is to build a trusted personal brand.

> Do you feel like a LinkedIn profile with a nice history of your work isn't enough for what you're seeking?

This works for job hunting. But not in terms of building a brand.

[drakonka → burhanrashid52]

What is the goal/direction of the brand, though? Most brands I know of have some sort of purpose, or something they are selling. I get that a personal brand is more like selling yourself, but what "buyer" are you targeting? VCs? Employers? Open-source contributors? Engineering students/mentees? Seems like the approach would vary depending on the answer. (Sorry maybe I'm just confused, I don't know much about marketing! I do have to fumble through a bit of it for my books though, and at least part of that process is figuring out the ideal audience.)

[burhanrashid52 → drakonka]

It's a valid question, its focus is on teaching mainly Engineering students/employees.

[eatonphil]

I don't see a meaningful difference between social media and substack (or wordpress.com or medium.com) since they are all about the network too, and I don't mean that in a bad way. What is the difference you see?

A newsletter you put out outside of substack and wordpress.com and medium.com will gain users much more slowly since you don't have the benefit of the massive existing network of substack/wordpress.com/medium.com users.

I don't say that as a reason not to write your own letter I'm just describing what I see.

[burhanrashid52 → eatonphil]

> meaningful difference between social media and substack

On substack I get email to commute directly anytime. They get my content in their inbox. And it's not algo heavy. Other social media like Twitter, insta, and Facebook rely on content engagement.

> I don't say that as a reason not to write your own letter

I am doing it. The problem is slow growth and less reach compare to social media.

[mortallywounded]

Your question sounds confused. You did social for years and have "huge rewards" from it and yet want to quit it because, reasons. Yet you seek social alternatives that are also social networks of their own (substack, github, etc).

If you're going to do social, do whatever you find rewarding. If not, then don't.

Personally, I find zero value in becoming an "influencer" or having a well known blog/industry creds. I'd rather let my creations speak for themselves.

[burhanrashid52 → mortallywounded]

> Your question sounds confused.

Yeah maybe. I am basically tried of the social media algo now and don't want to stick it with anymore.

> my creations speak for themselves.

I disagree. I've had multiple creations, but the one that worked was the one I marketed it.

[mortallywounded → burhanrashid52]

What does it mean to "work"? Some stars on Github? Millions in revenue?