diff --git a/src/blog/2025/10/tools-catalog-github-discussions.md b/src/blog/tools-catalog/github-discussions.md similarity index 86% rename from src/blog/2025/10/tools-catalog-github-discussions.md rename to src/blog/tools-catalog/github-discussions.md index 4278fd5..2d4bb6d 100644 --- a/src/blog/2025/10/tools-catalog-github-discussions.md +++ b/src/blog/tools-catalog/github-discussions.md @@ -1,5 +1,5 @@ --- -title: "Setting Up GitHub Discussions | Tools Catalog" +title: "A DevRel Guide to GitHub Discussions | Tools Catalog" excerpt: | GitHub Discussions is an online forum that can be used for engaging your developer community. @@ -26,7 +26,7 @@ In this article, you'll learn how to set up and manage [GitHub Discussions](/pro > > The DevRel Foundation [Tools Catalog](/projects/tools-catalog) was created to help explore tools that are beneficial to the practices of Developer Relations. It is more than a list, it is an open data repository that helps with evaluating and learning tools for DevRel. -## Getting Started with GitHub Discussions +## 1. Setting Up GitHub Discussions GitHub Discussions was introduced in 2020 in order to support community-driven conversations. This solves a few big problems for developer communities. @@ -43,7 +43,7 @@ GitHub Discussions may not be your ideal tool if you have constraints such as: - want to collect user sign ups - not comfortable with discussions being in public -## Consideration: User Accounts +## 1.1 Requirement of GitHub Accounts One limitations of GitHub Discussions is account management. @@ -51,17 +51,17 @@ If you want to be able to email everybody in your community, GitHub Discussions If you want to let your community participate in GitHub Discussions using the same account as your SaaS, PaaS, or user accounts then you would need to use social login with OAuth in order to correlate user accounts. -## Consideration: Scoping Your Community Discussions +## 1.2 Scoping Your Community Discussions Typically on GitHub, you'll have a one to many relationship of an **organization** to **repositories**. You can enable GitHub Discussions on each individual repository but you can only have one for the organization overall. This can be a source of confusion for your community if discussions are happening in multiple places unless the repositories are for projects that are very distinct. -## Recommendation: A Community Repos for Your Organization +## 1.3 A Community Repos for Your Organization A recommended approach to setting up discussions for your technical community. -### 1. Create a `community` repository +### 1.3.1 Create a `community` repository Create a new repository and consider naming it `community`. @@ -69,20 +69,20 @@ Go into the **Settings** for this new repository and enable Discussions. For this repository, you may also consider disabling some of the other features that you likely won't use like **Issues** and **Projects**. This helps simplify navigation on GitHub so that the discussions area stands out. You may also want to add and update the README.md linking to the discussions, adding a code of conduct, and other best practices for communities outside the scope of this article. -### 2. Enable Discussions for Your Organization Overall +### 1.3.2 Enable Discussions for Your Organization Overall You'll need to have admin access for the organization overall. Go into the settings and locate discussions and choose your new community repository. See the GitHub Docs: * Enable GitHub Discussions for Your Organization -### 3. Consolidate Discussions Across Organization +### 1.3.3 Consolidate Discussions Across Organization Once you've set up your community repository, it's important to consolidate discussions to avoid confusion. Check for any other repositories with discusisons enabled but inactive or not used much. You should disable them to avoid confusing your community on where to find activity and get responses. -## Recommendation: Customize Discussion Categories +## 1.4 Customize Discussion Categories You'll start with an initial set of categories: Announcements, General, Ideas, Polls, Q&A, Show and tell. @@ -95,7 +95,9 @@ For example, with the DevRel Foundation we are part of one community, but somebo You might consider using a separate category for each repository, so while there is a single common community discussion groups, each repository can still carve off its own focused area. -## Recommendation: Use Pinned Discussion Messages Effectively +## 2. Welcoming New Members + +### 2.0.1 Use Pinned Discussion Messages Effectively Create a message and call it something like "Welcome! How-to Get Started Here". Include a succinct introduction so that when somebody first finds your GitHub Discussions they know where to begin. @@ -106,7 +108,9 @@ In your welcome, make sure to cover: - [ ] point people to code of conduct or any rules for participation - [ ] provide links to tutorials or other introductory materials or posts -## Recommendation: Identify a Community Manager for Discussions +## 3. Managing Your Community + +## 3.1 Identify a Community Manager for Discussions You'll want to identify somebody accountable for managing the GitHub Discussions. They should be expected to do a few things: - [ ] make sure questions are answered @@ -115,6 +119,23 @@ You'll want to identify somebody accountable for managing the GitHub Discussions Make sure they turn on GitHub notifications and update their email settings so they are aware of when discussions are created. GitHub notifications can be noisy to manage if you watch all activity in a repository including PRs, commits, issues, and discussions. +## 4. Measuring Your Community + +## 4.1 Community Engagement + +The Insights tab for a repository does not include any metrics or analytics specifically for GitHub Discussions. To get this data, the GitHub team built an [issue-metrics](https://github.com/github/issue-metrics?tab=readme-ov-file#available-metrics) project that can be setup as a GitHub Action. + +It includes: + +- time to answer + +There may be other third-party options available to get other trends you may be interested in as a trend. + +- number of posts +- number of participants +- average posts per participant + + ## Conclusion Particularly for open source communities using GitHub Discussions can be a very quick and easy win for giving your community a place to ask questions, vote on polls, and other forms of engagement. diff --git a/src/blog/tools-catalog/google-analytics.md b/src/blog/tools-catalog/google-analytics.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ab4ec44 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/blog/tools-catalog/google-analytics.md @@ -0,0 +1,121 @@ +--- +title: "A DevRel Guide to Google Tag Manager and Analytics | Tools Catalog" +excerpt: | + Google Analytics gives insight into content performance when used in combination with Google Tag Manager. +author: "@devrel-foundation" +date: "2025-12-10" +category: "pro-lead" +tags: ["tools-catalog"] +image: "/images/blog/devrel-foundation-tools-catalog.png" +--- + +Creating technical content that helps developers to successfully adopt technology is a critical function for a number of deveeloper relations roles. This will take the form of a technical blog, product pages or documentation. One tool to help gain insight into the effectivness of content is [Google Analytics](/projects/tools-catalog/explore?tool=analytics.google.com) (GA4) and **Google Tag Manager (GTM)**. + +In this article, you'll learn how to set up and manage [Google Analytics](/projects/tools-catalog/explore?tool=analytics.google.com) for your developer content, including some best practices and tips. + +> **Contributing Authors** +> --- +> +>
+> +> Additional contributions to [this article](https://github.com/DevRel-Foundation/site/blob/main/src/blog/2025/10/tools-catalog-github-discussions.md) were made by: [dzeitman](https://github.com/dzeitman), [j12y](/blog/author/j12y) +> +>
+> +> The DevRel Foundation [Tools Catalog](/projects/tools-catalog) was created to help explore tools that are beneficial to the practices of Developer Relations. It is more than a list, it is an open data repository that helps with evaluating and learning tools for DevRel. + + +## 1. Setting Up Google Analytics (GA4) + + +### Checklist of Recommendations + + +### Dealing with UTM + + +### Exporting Data + + + +## 2. Setting Up Google Tag Manager (GTM) + +To measure the effectivness of content you... + +1. Install Google Tag Manager +2. Create events such as docs_page_view, tutorial_start, tutorial_complete +3. Mark tutorial_complete as a conversion + + +## 3. Insights from Analytics + +The goal in using GA4 and demonstrating a higher maturity DevRel program would be going beyond purely measuring page views. Typically, a B2B or B2D website is not interested in impressions in the same way sites that are driven by advertising prioritize value. To succeed, DevRel teams need to prove impact. + +### Measure: First Successful Event + +When you get a new visitor to your site, you may be interested in intent signals. You can instrument these as tags for the +events of interest to you. + +### Measure: Download Rate or CTA + +You may want to measure the download rate for a piece of content from a button or critical menu link... + +### Measure: Tutorial Completion Rate + +Scroll depth can be an indication of completion by firing an event when... + +### Measure: Return Visitors + +Knowing what percentage of visitors have visited multiple times within a period can tell you... + +### Measure: Attention Hours + +A complex metric like attention hours uses page views and time on page provide... + +## 4. Take Action + +Once you've gathered actionable insights about developer behaviors you can intrument repeatable workflows. + +### Red Flag: High Traffic, Low Activation + +Benchmarks for typical SaaS businesses: +* Seed +* Series A +* Series B +* Series C +* Series D + +If you exceed benchmarks at the stage of growth but see activation rate below n % then onboarding may be unclear. + +Look for content that has high traffic but under 2% conversion rate and prioritize this content for rewrites. + +### Red Flag: High Tutorial Start, Low Completion + +If you instrument GTM with tutorial_start and tutorial_end events you can calculate completion rate... + +Ways to address this: +- tutorials should take less than 20 minutes to complete +- verify you are not missing steps and provide remediation advice should a step have a probability of error +- consider using a heatmapping tool and watch user behavior, see the [Tools Catalog](/projects/tools-catalog) for examples of this type of tool + +### Red Flag: Low Traffic, High Activation + +For content that has a high activation rate but low traffic volume, consider repurposing content into other formats like a video, tutorial, or talk... + +## 5. Workflows + +### Monthly: Content Reporting + +Review your top performing blog post and let others know that... + +### Quarterly: Content Pruning + +Look for any content that has x or y characteristics... Consider archiving this content or updating it... + + +## Conclusion + +When done well, you'll be able to tell executive stakeholders that content drove X percent more activations or reduced time-to-first success by Y percent as a result of your activities. This is the hallmark of a great DevRel program. + + + diff --git a/src/hooks.server.js b/src/hooks.server.js index 541a163..0c529d7 100644 --- a/src/hooks.server.js +++ b/src/hooks.server.js @@ -25,6 +25,11 @@ const redirects = [ from: /^\/join-us\/?$/, to: '/join', status: 302 + }, + { + from: /^\/blog\/2025\/10\/tools-catalog-github-discussions/, + to: '/blog/tools-catalog/github-discussions', + status: 302 } ];