Marketing to Software Engineers on Twitter Is an Expensive Good Idea

Editorial note: hello after a long absence, folks!  I am genuinely sorry (though not apologetic, per se) that it’s been so long.

We’ve done some staff hiring over at Hit Subscribe, so I’m starting to have the faintest glimpse of the time required to resume creating content here on DaedTech.  And that content will continue to focus on themes in the business of freelancing series.

Today I’m getting back on the horse by sharing a post that I’ll publish both here and on the Hit Subscribe blog.  I’m doing that because the content is at the intersection of developer hustles and marketing. Generally, we do a data-driven analysis and modeling of the marketing channels that we use.

This post is about the viability of Twitter as a marketing platform, if you intend to market to fellow engineers.  So if you’re considering a hustle where you’re marketing to your fellow engineers (or just curious about doing so), this is worth reading.

Onward, To the Content!

Software engineers hang out on Twitter.

I know this anecdotally and by feel because I spent most of my career as a software engineer and I’ve had a Twitter account for more than a decade.  But you can confirm this somewhat more objectively as well.

For instance, a Google search for “programmers to follow on Twitter” does get actual search volume (per Keywords Everywhere).  When I plugged in other vocations, like lawyer, doctor, and teacher, no search volume registered.

While my initial Twitter presence was largely to interact professionally and promote a hobby blog, about seven years ago I went into business for myself as a consultant.  So social media started to become a lead generation channel for services and any products I offered.  Twitter was no exception.

I dutifully promoted content and offerings on Twitter and LinkedIn because that’s just “Marketing Your Business 101.”  Best practices and all that.  I imagine that a lot of startup founders and indies, like me, do this by rote.

Asking the Question: Should Brands Market to Developers on Twitter?

But for reasons I won’t bore you with here, I wound up shifting from writing software to starting a developer marketing business about four years ago.  And with this business, we take a kind of Moneyball/Freakonomics-style approach to content campaigns.  We don’t take on work unless we can model out, at least in the abstract, ROI on the content we create.

That recently brought me full circle to ask what I should have asked all those years ago: is Twitter a worthwhile marketing channel for reaching engineers?

Common sense and anecdotal experience say yes.  But nagging doubts have been creeping in as I study successful influencers’ use of the platform.

It’s not that I doubt that they reach people and build relationships.  There’s no doubt about that.  It’s more that I think their love of the Twitter game causes them to lose sight of how much labor (and thus cost) they sink into the platform to get those results.

And that’s fine for influencers in the space.  But it can translate to an attractive nuisance for brands.  And these days, I’m in the business of helping brands’ marketing departments avoid wasting money on attractive nuisances.

So let’s take a data-driven look at Twitter, using the data that I have available to me: my tweets and my followers.  All of this content and people skew heavily programmer.

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Why “I Do High Quality Work” Is Both Good Policy and Terrible Positioning

In a relatively recent post, I teased writing about the “attractive nuisance” of freelancers and aspiring business owners branding their work as “high quality.”  And now I’m going to do just that.  I think this is important.

But I’ve got to say, sometimes it feels like I’m just swimming in contrarian hot takes and click-baiting my way to, well… to I don’t know what exactly.  I mean, it’s not like I have any real mission on this site other than talking about whatever pops into my head.

Still, though.  I swear I’m not just an aspiring middle aged edgelord.  There is a method to the madness.

High Quality Work Itself is, Of Course, Desirable

To prove it, I’ll make clear that I have no actual problem with the ideas of doing things well, mastering skills or taking pride in one’s work.  I wouldn’t advise you to do things poorly.

After all, just recently, I re-caulked my shower and never once thought, “meh, I’ll just spray this stuff at the seams until it’s everywhere and call it a day.”  Instead, I got out the rubbing alcohol, putty knife, painter’s tape, and worried at it until I had a smooth, symmetrical bead.

Off the cuff, I’d say situations where doing shoddy work is any kind of advantage, in a vacuum, are really quite rare.  Maybe rapid prototyping or something…?  With most work personal and professional, there’s no need to overthink whether excellence trumps mediocrity.  It does.

The trouble is that positioning your work as “high quality” is a much different beast from doing work that is high quality (which, I might argue is just table stakes for conducing business and not a differentiator).

Confused?  No worries.  I’ll explain.

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It Turns Out Your Prospects Don’t Like When You Assume They’re Stupid

I’ve been traveling a lot lately.  And, while this is good for the vagabond’s soul, it’s not good for recording videos.

So instead of continuing to treat you to niche case studies (those are coming, though), I’m getting back to my roots and writing.  I’m going to classify this, like all of my other recent posts, as “business of freelancing.”  But it’s really a bit of an interlude, since it’s not a logical continuation of my last post, which was about how to conduct market research to identify niches.

For today’s post, let’s assume that you’ve either found a niche, or else are just flailing around as a generalist, and you’re doing some prospecting.  I want to talk about prospecting — specifically, one great way not to do it.

What is Prospecting?

Perhaps before we go barreling too far down the road to business acquisition anti-pattern, I should define what I mean by prospecting.

I’m not talking about going out and looking for oil or whatever, and I don’t really have a formal, official definition.  Instead, I’ll explain what this means to me so that you understand what, exactly, I’m talking about for the rest of the post.

Consider:

• Marketing is the process by which you create awareness of your offering.
• Sales is the process of maneuvering leads (ideally, ones brought about through your marketing), through your sales process and to customers.

Clever readers may notice a gap here.

What if I don’t really have any marketing to speak of, and my phone isn’t ringing with inbound business?  How do I get leads into my sales process?

The various hustling you do to address this situation, dear reader, is known as prospecting.  (Please don’t confuse this with marketing.)

A Prospecting Example

If I were in your shoes, interested in learning about business concepts, I’d want a concrete example.  So, in true Golden Rule spirit, let me offer that.

My business, Hit Subscribe, is a specific kind of marketing partner.  We help dev tools companies make engineers aware of their offerings (usually via blog posts).  These days, I’m doing 2-3 sales calls per week, and here are the ways those come about:

1. Inbound leads through word of mouth.  Current customers refer people they know, or customer contacts switch companies and bring us along for the ride.  This is an instance of marketing.
2. People reach out because they read a guest post of mine somewhere or saw a talk.  This is another instance of marketing — specifically content marketing.
3. I hang out places where our customers hang out, introduce myself, and forge relationships.  This is prospecting.

In the loosest sense, I think of marketing as strategies to facilitate passive (from your vantage point) awareness.  If Hit Subscribe impresses a customer into a referral, or someone reads a blog post I wrote and reaches out, we’re expending no specific effort to reach this person.

But prospecting is active and tailored.  You’re identifying and targeting possible customers.

And because you’re initiating the relationship, you need to exercise a lot more care in how you do this.  Which brings me to the meat of the post.

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