Influencer-driven marketing
I'm thinking about influencer-driven marketing, and curious about real experiences.
When building a developer tool that automates AWS infrastructure, one option is working with influencers, especially developers/cloud/startup builders who already have trust with their audience.
I am considering long-term partnerships with builders who actually use the product on real problems and who would be benefiting from the product’s success.
I’d love to hear from others here: Have influencer partnerships worked for you? What made it work (or fail)?
I appreciate any real-world experiences.
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I’ve seen influencer-driven marketing work for dev tools, but only when it’s treated less like “marketing” and more like public usage.
The failures usually come from optimizing for audience size instead of context. A creator talking about your tool in isolation (“this tool is cool”) rarely converts. What does convert is when the product shows up as a natural part of solving a real problem they already have.
The setups I’ve seen work best look more like long-term usage than partnerships: the builder uses the tool for weeks, hits friction, shapes the narrative around “why this exists,” and the audience learns alongside them.
One practical test before committing: ask whether the influencer would still use the product if there were no audience. If the answer is no, it usually turns into shallow awareness rather than sustained adoption.
For infra/dev tools especially, credibility compounds slowly because fewer creators, deeper integration, real problems tends to outperform broad shoutouts.
Thank you! Public usage sounds worth trying.
Glad it resonated.
If you want to test it without committing, a low-risk version I’ve seen work is:
pick one real problem you’re already working on --> use your own tool publicly while solving it --> document where it feels awkward or breaks.
No CTA, no launch post just “this is what I’m building and why this keeps coming up.”
If people start asking questions, that’s signal. If not, you still get product clarity.
Great advice! Thanks.