How to Build Your Online Presence as a Developer

This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Mangabo Kolawole

When entering a career, you have to find something that makes you competitive—something that makes someone say, "Hey, I want to hire this person so we can work together on this product or project."

There are many ways to achieve this. You can be skilled, you can have a good network, you can have rich parents, and you can also have an online presence—hey, any unfair advantage is welcome.

And this proves that it’s not always the most qualified person who gets the job or opportunity. I can tell you right now, many developers might not be as skilled as you but have secured opportunities simply because they have an unfair advantage.

I'm going to share what you can do as a developer to have a noticeable presence online. I'll also discuss how you can do it the hard way or the lazy way. I understand that some people aren't talkative or don't have time to be on every social media platform, but that's okay.

I can provide the best ways you can be present on the internet, and you can choose what works for you. So, follow me along on this journey.

My Story

I started creating content five years ago. Before fully committing to software engineering, I was studying psychology, and during that time, I became fascinated with the psychology of learning.

What does it mean to truly learn?

Learning often involves repeating information until it’s ingrained in our neural pathways. But at its core, if you’ve really learned something, you should be able to explain it in simple terms that others can easily understand.

That’s the essence of the Feynman technique: if I learn something, how can I explain it to someone else? That approach inspired me to start writing articles and sharing what I knew. Even though my English wasn’t perfect back then and my articles lacked structure, it was about helping others.

When I encountered something new, I would turn to Google, Reddit, Twitter, and GitHub, finding projects and solutions. That’s how people discover your work—they search, find, and engage with it.

So, what does this tell you? If you want to build an online presence, you have to communicate. Share what you’re doing daily, what you’re learning, and what you aim to learn.

It could be a post, a tweet, a LinkedIn update, an article, a podcast, or a video. The key is to create something shareable that can teach someone else.

It doesn’t have to be only about coding. There are plenty of accounts discussing productivity in relation to developers—how to work efficiently remotely, how to improve your career as a software engineer, or how to break into the industry.

If coding is your focus, great—write about that. But if not, that’s fine too.

Now, let’s talk about the platforms you can use to share your work. There are many communities, but some of the most popular ones are LinkedIn, Twitter, Dev.to, Reddit, and even TikTok or YouTube if you want to dive into content creation.

The Platforms

For each platform, what kind of posts do you want to create?

Let’s talk about LinkedIn.

LinkedIn

I'm not going to lie; LinkedIn is quite easy to write on. It's mostly about how high you want to go on the level of cringe or how true to yourself you want to be when talking about stuff.

Strangely enough, most cringe posts tend to perform well, but honest posts are just overlooked.

You can do both, but think of it as a spectrum from cringe to honesty. You have to find a good balance.

Most of the time, I aim for 60% honesty and 40% cringe. The cringe part involves adding personal experiences or exaggerations to create emotions that people will connect with, increasing engagement, and making the algorithm push your posts to more people.

It's up to you to decide, but be true to yourself.

Try to find something that works for you. A good dose of cringe and honesty might be a good way to engage. So what can you talk about on LinkedIn? You can talk about everything. But if you want to be present, depending on your goals, you have to ask yourself, "What are my goals? Why do I want to be present on the internet?"

Do I want to create a course? Do I want to sell a book? Do I want to start my own startup? What exactly do I want at the end of the day? Based on that, you decide.

Let’s suppose I want to publish an ebook in one year about developing with Next.js and Python. I’m going to spend the next months talking about Python and everything related on LinkedIn.

Whenever it comes to something, I will create posts that generate engagement and try to stir up conversations to share knowledge. You have to mix honesty and, if you want, a bit of cringe, but it’s up to you.

Here are some accounts to follow on LinkedIn:

• Navdeep Singh
• Lazer Nikolov
• Danny Thompson
• Fernando Franco
• Marc Lamberti
• Kevin Naughton

Twitter

Twitter is actually a little bit complicated but quite interesting. What you have to do on Twitter is to post at least, I’d say, eight tweets every two days about something. However, you need to be very active in replying to others.

Here’s the thing: there are a lot of accounts you can follow on Twitter that will help you create and have meaningful discussions.

Many people discuss various topics, and you can look at their replies. There are lots of people asking questions or sharing their experiences. You can share yours with them.

At the end of the day, have conversations and create meaningful interactions with people. You’ll see that you can provide value to others, and you’re going to get new followers, profile visits, and increased views on your Twitter. If people see that what you’re writing works, then this is going to be good for them.

Here are some accounts you can follow:

• Catalin Pit
• Florin Pop
• Brad Traversy
• Danny Thompson
• Eddie Jaoude
• Sabrina Aquino
• Andrew Baisden
• 𝚗𝚊𝚗𝚊𝚖𝚒
• heyOnuoha
• YK aka CS Dojo
• Jack Forge
• Fernando Franco
• Travis Hubbard
• terminally onλine εngineer
• Gergely Orosz

Reddit

Reddit is very interesting if you want to share your experience or ask questions. Between that and Twitter, it might be the best way to speak and get meaningful responses. But beware of trolls because they’re everywhere. I’m not very active on Reddit, but I have answered some questions there, and I’d say the community is quite warm.

You’ll find yourself discussing with people, which is quite interesting to be able to talk genuinely, share your point of view, receive comments, and also create posts. If you do it well, you’re going to get noticed.

The key is to contribute. Here are some subreddits to join:

• r/softwaredevelopment
• r/opensource
• r/nextjs
• r/SoftwareEngineering
• r/Python

DEV.to

Dev.to is a platform where you can write articles. What’s also interesting is that you can add comments and talk with people on posts you’ve seen. On Dev.to, if you go there, it’s mostly to be an expert in your domain.

If you want to push technical content, you can go and push it. Productivity content? You can push that too. Want to talk about the tools you’re using? You can share that as well.

Most of the articles that are working right now on Dev.to are about things like "Don't do this," "Don't do that," "Tools I am using“ and so on. I think that’s a good kind of content, but don’t let what’s working now necessarily affect your content strategy.

It doesn’t mean that if you write about awesome technologies, building APIs and apps, you won’t get traction. What I do personally is try to mix technical content (including code) and also content talking about productivity.

Most of the time, productivity content does very well in a few days. However, content regarding code might not do as well early on. However, over two to three months, you might find yourself getting more views because that’s where the big advantage of Dev.to lies—SEO on Google.

I have so many articles that are found on Google because people search for things like "How do I build an API with Django and Nextjs?" or "How do I do this or that?" I find it pretty nice.

This is the kind of thing you need. Sometimes you have to play the short game or the long game. It depends on you and what you want.

Go All In or Lazy

The thing is, don’t feel pressured to be on all these platforms. You can actually choose one platform and work on it. You might decide to focus on Twitter, LinkedIn, TikTok, or YouTube.

Be aware that it might take time to create content because, I guarantee you, creating content is not easy if you are targeting multiple platforms.

I took the lazy way and ignored LinkedIn and Reddit. However, I discovered that those platforms are also fascinating and can help me grow.

Where to start? Just talk about what you are learning, what happened at your job, an interesting fact, or even a shitpost just for laughs and giggles.

But there is a TRAP!

Give a Lot to the Community

If you’re looking to grow your online presence to potentially launch something in the future, please—I’m on my knees 🧎🏿‍♂️—be patient!

When it comes to building an online presence, the more you give, the better you’ll receive.

That’s the fun—and sometimes challenging—part. You need to give 99 times before asking once, but when you do, the return on investment can be huge.

Be consistent

An important part of building an online presence is consistency. Consistency doesn’t mean writing an article every day or tweeting every hour. It’s about choosing and committing to a schedule that works for you.

• Do you want to post a tweet every two days?
• Do you want to share a LinkedIn article every week?
• Maybe write on Dev.to every month?
• Or upload a video on YouTube weekly or monthly?

Whatever it is, decide on something manageable. Don’t put unnecessary pressure on yourself—building your online presence takes time. It’s an adventure with exponential results.

If you rush, you might make mistakes. Building a presence, especially on social media, takes longer because you're actually building connections with people. And connections take time. But when you invest that time, the relationships you build can last for years, not just days or months. In the long run, you’ll see the payoff.

So, don’t be surprised if it takes six months or even a year to see significant results. But here’s one thing for sure: even if your content helps just one person, that’s enough. That person might share it with another, and that’s when the domino effect begins.

If you’re thinking it’s too late to start, remember: the best time to begin was 10 months ago; the next best time is now.

Conclusion

Building your online presence is a journey that requires patience, consistency, and genuine engagement.

Choose the platforms that suit you best, create content you're passionate about, and don't pressure yourself. Even small steps can lead to significant results over time.

Remember, it's about connecting with people and sharing your unique perspective.

Share your experience in the comments below, ask any questions you have, and don’t forget to share this article with your network if you found it helpful.

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This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Mangabo Kolawole