Having an online presence is powerful. It allows you to build credibility, show your passion for what you do and helps you stand out from the crowd. In this day and age, when everyone is the best at their job, what sets you apart is your digital footprint, such as your skills, connections, and the projects you are proud of. Having a good digital footprint is key to landing your dream job. However, there are many reasons why having an online presence is essential.

Hiring managers love it!

Before an interview, recruiters will most likely research your internet presence. With one Google search, they are looking to see how active you are online and what kind of content is associated with your name. The more content that pops up when your name is put in Google, the better. Recruiters are looking for people who know exactly what they are talking about. When your blogs, YouTube channels, or Stack Overflow are the first to show up, it gives you leverage. They will always hire someone actively engaged in their field and adding value to it.

Networking and collaboration.

As you post often and share your knowledge, other people in your field start to notice your work. These people start to interact with you, which will allow you to build a network in your field. Programmers spend endless hours in front of their screens and tend to forget about going to networking events. Therefore, having an online presence allows you to network more conveniently as a programmer (without leaving your seat).

Additionally, once you start building your networking skills and start interacting with others, they recognise you as an industry expert, so they are more likely to reach out to you to start a collaboration, whether it be on specific codes or projects.

Opportunities

Speaking of collaborations, you will be presented with opportunities to get hands-on experience with projects. This is a great way to build your portfolio and add credibility to your work. It could also mean that in the future, if you want to do freelancing, your employers will be aware of precisely what you are capable of doing and know what you are talking about.

What is available to you?

There are many ways to increase your online presence. However, it is essential to locate the right platform for you. Choosing the best social media platforms will be primarily influenced by your target audience, the nature of your business, and the most popular social media platforms. Twitter is the most straightforward and interactive platform, allowing you to build connections with like-minded people. Simply retweeting a blog post, an opinionated article in your field, or even the opinions of your fellow tweeters is the simplest way to start your online presence now.

However, more than one platform is needed. You will need other platforms that help you boost your online presence. LinkedIn, Facebook, Youtube, and blog websites such as Hashnode and DEV are essential to getting more content under your name. The more you post on these platforms, the more you become known by individuals in your field.

Another way to increase your credibility and reputation is by posting on Q&A websites like Reddit and Quora. Here you can discuss relevant topics, share your expertise, and explore new concepts openly. Stack Overflow is a great Q&A website for programmers with more than 50 million questions and answers about technology topics. A fantastic feature that Stack Overflow provides is that they track your engagement and report on your data. This means you know exactly what you could do to increase your interaction rates.

Nowadays, there are plenty of course websites where you can teach and learn new topics in your field, or maybe you just want to learn something new for fun. Udemy is one of those forums that you can take advantage of. If you find that you are an expert in a particular field, you can sell it by teaching others what you know. You can then promote this service on your other platforms. This is a great way to build your reputation because people associate you with your course and will trust that you know exactly what you are doing.

So how exactly do you start building an online presence?

It can be overwhelming at the beginning, not knowing where to begin, but choosing something simple like Twitter and getting comfortable with posting regularly will encourage you to branch out to other platforms. From there, you could write blogs and promote them on your Twitter and LinkedIn. Perhaps, Youtube is more up your lane. Whatever you are comfortable with, it is vital to make it a habit to post regularly. Posting quality content daily and interacting with others in the same field as you is vital. Eventually, the more significant accounts that you may look up to will start interacting with you. However, this is only possible if you are consistent. Consistency is key.

Another important aspect of your online presence is that while you are posting regularly, you need to ensure that you add value.

Follow bigger accounts that are in your field. Accounts that have significantly more followers than you know exactly what they are doing and talking about, so pay attention to what they are posting and how often they do so. It may be beneficial if you turn on the notifications for those accounts to add value to their posts as soon as possible. This will bring attention to your account.

Moreover, you have to show interest in learning something new. Explore more. If you come across an article that is not exactly in your niche but is related to programming, feel free to retweet it or repost it with a bit of context on how it may have influenced you or what you thought about it. This is because, by retweeting content, you are adding value to other people's timelines.

Once you do this for a couple of months, you are on a roll, and the process will become second nature to you. You will find that the opportunities you struggled to get at the beginning are now falling onto your lap without even trying.

Resources that can help you!

There are countless blog posts, and YouTube videos that guide you, the developer, to get the perfect or most robust internet presence as a developer, only one search away. But what if this can be easier?

Tublian is a website built for junior programmers (like you!) to take control of their careers effortlessly. It provides you with contribution opportunities with Q&A sites, blogs, Twitch streams, etc. This allows you to build your online presence further and gain experience. It allows you to grow and showcase all your projects and contributions with the 360-degree view of a developer. It focuses on how passionate you are as a programmer, your curiosity, how well you work as a team, and your experience. They provide a street-cred score that employers can use to judge the credibility of your work. Furthermore, what's more important is that it is EASY! Get started NOW.