Measuring success in DevRel
There are a few topics as tricky as measuring success in DevRel.
The thing is, you'll most likely never run out of good ideas or things to do. Helping the existing user base, creating more educational content, going to conferences - are all great initiatives. The range of things you can spend time on (and even get some really good results) is very big, so you need to be careful.
If your focus is all over the place, your results will also be.
The idea for this post is to guide you through measuring the success of your initiatives in DevRel. I'll explain a bit about how to discover what initiatives you should be focusing on, how to know if they're working, and adjust accordingly.
The goal
I cannot emphasize this enough. Having a target goal is the first thing you need to do as you go inside your DevRel role. This is what will define why it makes sense to do one task instead of the other. In other words, the goal is what you'll use to know where your focus should be and what you should prioritize.
Remember that your DevRel efforts shouldn't exist isolated from the rest of the company strategy. It's the very opposite of that.
So what is your primary goal? Meaning, what is your company looking to get from your DevRel initiatives? Grow the community? Improve the developer experience? Increase brand awareness? And how does that align with the larger DevRel strategy? Define your North Star goal clearly. Once you have it, you can establish supporting goals to achieve it.
For example, if your North Star goal is to increase brand awareness, your supporting goals can be: talking at conferences, writing articles on popular topics, and doing livestreams.
The supportive goals can largely vary and depend on what you would rather be doing to achieve your North Star goal. If you don't like live streaming, for example, maybe do some short video tutorials, or participate in events or discussions from other communities.
The motivation drain
Continuous effort without seeing tangible results can seriously drain your and your team's motivation. It's tough - DevRels are the ones passionately tweeting, blogging, speaking at events, and building relationships. And when you're passionate about what you do, not seeing the impact of your work can feel like a personal failure, even when it's not.
I can't count how many former developer advocates I've talked to who left the field because they felt like their work didn't matter or they just got too exhausted from trying to prove their value.
The combined pressure of high expectations, limited resources, and unclear success metrics can create a perfect storm for burnout. This constant need to justify their existence and the lack of visible appreciation and support led them to disengage and eventually seek a career change.
Again, this is why defining your North Star goal is so important. You'll only be able to prove the value of the work you've been putting out if you have something to compare against. If you're not really keeping track of that, how would you show to the higher management that the work you're doing is actually worth their investment and bringing results?
For example, if community growth is your goal, track relevant metrics and compare them before and after your initiatives. Increased engagement, larger community size, and positive user sentiment paint a compelling picture of your contribution.
Also, don't underestimate the power of celebrating small wins.
First things first
So this is the part where you need to discuss realistic expectations with the management team, establish clear success metrics, and showcase the value you bring through regular reports and updates.
These are the first 3 steps you need to get right before anything else:
Defining clear goals and aligning how the DevRel initiatives will support the company's objectives.
Implementing relevant metrics that track the progress of these initiatives and show the tangible impact of DevRel activities.
Aligning on a key result and setting a timeline for the chosen metrics.
You can't measure something you don't know what it is. Measuring success requires first for you to understand what success is. Is it a 10% increase in post impressions? Is it how many attendees I had on a talk? the watch time on my videos? Define that with your manager.
Next, establish a culture of monitoring those metrics and regularly presenting them to your team. If things are going well, explore why and how you can amplify those successes. If things are not going well, investigate why and outline an improvement plan. This ensures you're efficiently allocating resources and delivering the most valuable experiences for your developer community.
What metrics should I choose?
Engagement metrics are the pulse for developer relations efforts. They tell you how actively involved your audience is with your content, events, and overall brand. But not all online engagement is the same. In DevRel, we usually track two types of engagement:
Active engagement: Thoughtful comments and questions, active participation in discussions and events, and contributions to your open-source projects are some examples. Your community is genuinely interested and is putting their time and effort into your success.
Passive engagement: Those are what some may call "vanity metrics." They give you a broader picture, like your reach, page views and downloads, and how many people see and consume your social media content. This helps you analyze which content resonates with your audience to keep making valuable stuff. It's not direct engagement, but it builds brand awareness and opens doors for future interaction.
We can abstract these into 3 levels of engagement:
Likes/Impressions: Someone saw your content but doesn't necessarily indicate deep interaction.
Comments and Shares: People are interested in discussing it or sharing it with others, a higher level of engagement.
Qualitative Engagement: What people are saying. Are they asking questions, sharing feedback, or connecting your content to their own experiences? This type of engagement shows a healthy and genuinely interested community.
But there's no one-size-fits-all. Learning how to read your metrics is also an important step to understanding your community's pulse. Don't be afraid to adjust your approach or explore other channels.
See metrics for what it is
Your metrics are your indicators, not your goals.
Data is a powerful tool, but engagement spikes are temporary wins. They don't necessarily translate into lasting engagement or loyalty to your brand. DevRel isn't spreadsheets and bar graphs. It's about genuine human connections and creating an environment where developers feel seen, heard, and valued.
This is where the metrics fall short. You can't quantify the warmth of a community or the strength of the relationships you build through your DevRel initiatives. These connections are the bedrock upon which sustainable growth is built. They encourage loyalty, foster community engagement, and ultimately drive the long-term success of your brand.
Even though data can tell you how many people saw your content, analyze it with a grain of salt.
And that's why I like to say that a DevRel is only as good as its intuition. Numbers tell us what and how many, but intuition helps us understand the why and how.
From experience
Now, I want to talk a bit about how this has been for me in the past 2 months I've been a developer advocate at Qdrant. My primary goal is community growth. And, of course, there are many ways in which this can be done.
To achieve this goal, I'm focusing on 3 main supporting goals strongly focused on developer awareness. Here are what they are and what initiatives I focus on to achieve them.
Engaging with the team: I've kicked off a few initiatives to connect our team more with our community. This includes hosting Vector Voices, a discussion on Twitter/X Spaces with our team and AI experts, and setting up Discord Office Hours for live Q&A sessions.
I'm also co-hosting Vector Space talks, a weekly podcast where Qdrant users share their experiences.
This part is all about being accessible by providing the community with space to interact with the team, and most importantly, with each other.
Creating educational content: I'm writing a series about getting started with Vector Databases to help people find us through search engines and raise awareness. One of my articles was even highlighted as 'Author of the Week' on Dev.to!
Another initiative for educational content is scaling this through an ambassador program (Which is still in development! Reach out if you're interested in vector search and would like to know more)!
Being everywhere and up-to-date: This is the part where you want to make sure people in other communities or socials hear about you.
For me, it includes participating in forum discussions, connecting with more people in the industry, being active in other communities, and knowing what people are talking about.
These efforts are drawing in tens of thousands of new people to our content in just 2 months! It's been a big win for us. Our Discord membership is a key metric for me and has jumped by more than 20%. We also saw other areas grow by 2 to 3 times, which isn't sustainable for long but it was a nice initial boost.
I'm sharing this to inspire you and spark ideas on what you can do for your own community, sharing what has worked for me so far. Also, I'm part of a team with 6 other DevRel folks, which makes my life much easier adding this to all their initiatives. We're actively trying to make a difference for our community and in the vector search space.
Final tips
In wrapping up, some parting advice.
If something doesn't help you hit that main goal, maybe it's time to drop it. It's totally cool to say no to stuff that doesn't line up with where you're headed. Trying to do everything just waters down what you're really good at.
Celebrate the small wins. They matter. This keeps everyone pumped and shows you're making moves.
And if you keep hitting a wall with certain tasks? Time to switch gears. Use what you've learned from data and feedback to make smart changes. Dropping what doesn't work isn't failure—it's smart.
DevRel is about strategic focus, celebrating progress, and being adaptable. So, keep calm, collect data, connect with your community, and enjoy the process.
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