I got 25K followers & a job at Hashnode within 2 months in tech Twitter! My advice.
My life is finally taking a turn for the better!!
Welcome once again to my fucking blog!!! 💙
I officially hit the 2 month anniversary mark on tech Twitter!
And...drumroll please...
I got 25K followers and JOINED THE HASHNODE TEAM AS AN ADVOCATE FOR THE PLATFORM!!
Being self-taught, building an audience opened many doors, and gave me opportunities I never dreamed of!
Joining tech Twitter has been one of the best decisions I've made, and I'm forever grateful to the community ❤️
It can be an amazing experience, so make the most out of it!
So, today I decided I'd be writing a little bit about my role at Hashnode, and my experience building an audience😆
So, without further ado, let's go!
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💙 What I learned in 2 months of building an audience on Twitter 💙
Building an online presence is important because it puts you out there.
It shows your personality, what you're passionate about, and what you're working on. Depending on how you use it, it can be very beneficial.
I'm writing this blog post after getting inspired by talking with Matt and Mike, from HTML All The Things Podcast (@htmleverything). We talked about content creation and building an audience on Twitter.
1. Be your most authentic self 😌
This is probably THE MOST important. By being yourself, you're able to better connect with people because you're relatable.
Yes, people like to learn, and knowledge can add a lot of value. But, don't be afraid to admit that you don't know something!
Part of being a developer is that we're all CONFUSED AF😂
By admitting you don't know something or showing your failures, you're normalizing it.
This helps people realize that it's totally okay not to know shit. You're able to relate to others, and them to you. That's fucking awesome!
2. Engagement is key🔥
Engagement is important AF when it comes to building an online presence!!
And I don't mean the engagement you get on your posts, but rather how you engage with other people on the platform.
Whether you use the platform to build an audience, network, or make friends, Twitter is literally the freaking conversation app. Use that to your advantage.
Interacting with people's posts and DMing them helps! However, you gotta keep in mind that none of this should be transactional, in my opinion. There's nothing wrong with business, but I think that keeping things genuine and having good intentions takes you a long way😁
Y'all who have been following me for a while already know this because I mention it all the time😂 but I DM'ed around the first 400-500 people that followed me on Twitter. It seems crazy, I know, but I've been off the grid for about 2 years! I was very curious and excited to see what other people were up to, especially other developers. This said, I like to think all my interactions with those people were really genuine. I even took the time to look at their portfolios and their GitHub profiles!😆
3. Content creation is no joke😅
Y'all...content creation is no fucking joke bro...this shit is so hard!!
If you think you're the only one struggling with coming up with content, you're not the only one!
Creating content requires a lot of time, creativity, and organization. Sometimes you might get brain farts, and that's totally fine! Having no idea what to post can get very annoying since you want to push content, but have no idea what to post.
When I first started posting on Twitter, a single tech Trivia question took me about 5 hours to make. Don't even mention a thread 😅....a single thread explaining a whole JavaScript concept took me the whole day. But, as I started getting familiar with the platform, it definitely takes me way less time now.
This is completely normal and part of the process. I realized that once you start creating content, you find your niche along the way. You start finding out what you like posting and what you enjoy making. It gets easier over time.
Also, you gotta make sure that you love the content you're producing...believe it or not, it 100% reflects on your work. If you love what you're doing, you'll naturally put a lot of effort into it, and it'll feel like a cool breeze every time instead of a chore.
The main takeaway is, as long as you're enjoying it, it'll be alright! So hang in there, and stick to it. The most important about content creation, in my opinion, is to stay consistent, and do what you love!🔥
4. Learn time management + tools 🗓
Learning how to manage your time is very important! At first, I didn't take this into consideration AT ALL, mostly because I underestimated how much time it takes to create content 😂
Honestly, I'm still bad at it now, but I discovered some tools that can make time management easier.
Here are some tools that I've found helpful!
1. Notion
I've just started using Notion, so I'm not an expert yet, but you can basically use it for anything. You can use it to organize your work, schedule your week, write notes....literally everything.
You can make it as simple or complicated as you want. Personally, I use it to schedule my to-do's for the week, my academic plan, organizing my grades, and writing notes for my podcast and Twitter spaces.
Notion has been a game changer when it comes to organizing your content, and my life in general! Also, it's free!😉
2. FeedHive
FeedHive is a scheduling tool you can use to organize and schedule your posts. You can use it with different social medias at the same time; so, essentially, you're organizing all your content for different social medias all in one place...*how fucking awesome is that?*🤯 Also, it shows you your social media analytics and when your audience is the most active for better post engagement.
My podcast Co-host Raza Zaidi got me the Creator Plan to help me with my time management. However, you can get it for free; there are a couple plans you can choose from!
3. Google Calendar
Everyone probably already knows Google Calendar, but I can't stress it enough! It immensely helped me with managing my time.
I used to have serious problems with time management and procrastination. So, having a calendar in which you schedule everything you do on a day to day basis really helps. Personally, it kind of created a bit of anxiety since I was trying to finish everything by the time I gave myself, but I needed that bit of pressure to finish the shit I had to do.
Also, the fact that is color coded...😂
We, programmers, love color coded things....
5. Grow thick skin 💪
Another important thing I learned during my time on tech Twitter is that you gotta be strong and grow thick skin.
Unfortunately, the internet is fucking brutal, and as much as it sucks, we gotta learn how to deal with it. The internet without the negative parts would be great, but it's the internet. There's nothing much we can do about it besides block and report, but the main takeaway of this section is that you accept it, embrace it even, and find other ways to keep the toxicity away. This can take a huge emotional toll on someone, so it's important to keep your mental and emotional health in check from time to time.
It's tough, I totally understand! To handle negative comments all while you're busting your brain to create content...is not an easy task. Some might even say to just disconnect and turn your phone off...but we, as content creators, know that's not easy, since this is *literally what we do*. We cannot just log off!
In my opinion, knowing what you're getting into before joining a certain platform certainly works. Get prepared; have a support system you can fall back to when shit turns sideways.
Take care of yourself! 😊
6. Build meaningful connections 🤞
Last, but not least...focus on building meaningful connections!
Before joining Tech Twitter, I was reluctant to join the platform because I thought that it was super toxic. However, the tech Twitter community has been an amazing experience. Everyone in the community is supportive and willing to share and learn together.
You can get so much out of building meaningful connections. In fact, I think that you should make the most out of it!!
Thanks to tech Twitter, I've made amazing friends, found inspiration through the work of many talented people, and motivation from those that go through their learning journey with pure grit and determination. It also made me more open-minded; I realized that there are plenty of ways to learn to program and that everyone goes through their journey at their own pace. It taught me to be more understanding towards myself too, those crazy standards that create imposter syndrome are completely gone.
Overall, it's been one of the best decisions I've made so far. Changed my life 180.
Now, the juicy part...
Let's talk about how I joined the Hashnode team, and what my role is!!🔥
💙 My role at Hashnode 💙
How I joined 💙
I was checking my DM requests when I see one that caught my attention...
Hi Yuri, Fazle here, co-founder @hashnode. 👋
I didn't even hesitate to open it, I was shitting my pants🤯
I was already a Hashnode lover ever since I joined it because it helped me revive my lost passion for writing. Also, I loved how it was very developer focused in terms of content and the tools for implementation. For example, how you can add CSS on your blog...or code snippets on your articles🔥
It was totally unexpected, and I was not looking for a job. I am still on my learning journey, I never thought I'd be job ready any time soon. So this definitely caught me by surprise. I said yes immediately!
This Hashnode role is still very new, so I had the honor to give some of my input to Fazle's vision. And like that, the Hashnode advocate role was created!!😁 It includes me, Annie 🦄⚡, Samina, James Q Quick, and Oliver Jumpertz!
My role at Hashnode 🤓
So WTF do I actually do as a Hashnode advocate?
So, you guys probably already know that Hashnode is very focused on catering to the community and making the platform the best experience for developers. That's probably why everyone loves it!! 😁
Anyway,..
Our job is to be the bridge that connects the developer community and the Hashnode team. We collect feedback and ideas for features, overall making Hashnode a better experience for everyone! This is why I love Hashnode; it really takes care of its users!💙
We also advocate (explains our title 😂*)* for the platform, which means that we try to spread the word and make it known to other developers and tech bloggers!
I personally think that everyone in development should get into technical writing; it's a great way to get yourself out in the open, build an online presence, show people (possible employers too) what you're passionate about, and learn!!
Technical writing is A MUST for your development career, but that's a story for another time...
That's it for today's blog!
HUGE thank you for all of you that read this whole long ass post!! 😂
Hopefully I was able to provide value with my advice on building an online presence!!