Community at Docker 
By Julien Barbier, Sr Dir of Growth, Marketing & Community at Docker
About me 
• Julien Barbier 
• 2004-2008: Software engineer & Product Manager 
(Paris, France) 
• 2008-2012: Entrepreneur (Paris, France & Miami, 
FL) 
• Oct 2012-now: co-Founder of #while42 
(International French Tech Engineers Network, 
1500+ members in 30+ chapters around the World) 
• Oct 2012-now: Sr Director of Growth, Marketing & 
Community at Docker (ex-dotCloud, San Francisco, 
CA) 
• Contact me: julien@docker | @julienbarbier42
About Docker 
• Build, Ship and Run Any App, Anywhere 
• dotCloud, Founded my Solomon Hykes, in 
France (2008), and “relaunched” in SF 
(2010) 
• dotCloud released Docker open source, 
Mar 2013 
• Huge traction since then, in both user and 
enterprise adoptions led to a pivot 
• Huge online and offline community 
• Learn more: www.docker.com | @docker
Community is the new marketing 
• Community represents 80+% of our “Marketing” 
• Lower budget, Higher conversion rate vs traditional marketing 
Your product/brand is 
not what you say it is. 
It is what THEY say it is.
Community, TL;DR; 
• Community is like a network 
• A community/network is as strong as the number of links between its 
members 
• IRL links are more precious than Online links 
• You do NOT own or control the community 
• It is NOT your community: you are part of it, you can influence it, but you 
do not own it 
• It is not what your community can do for you, but what you can do for your 
community 
• Your product/brand is not what you say it is. It is what THEY say it 
is. 
• Lower budget, Higher conversion rate vs traditional marketing 
• Communities everywhere! 
• At the end of the day everything is always about people
People, TL;DR;
Track and monitor EVERYTHING 
• Track and measure EVERYTHING 
• If it is useless now, it WILL be useful later 
• Integrate tracking and metrics EVERYWHERE 
• Should be part of your product release cycles 
• Should be part of every offline & online 
marketing campaign 
• Measure the impact of every change, 
update, new feature, campaign, tweet, 
meetup, event, press release… 
• Be both HUMAN and DATA DRIVEN
The San Francisco Docker VIP club 
• Jan 18, 2013: Initial commit 
• Closed source 
• Private presentations to startups by Solomon & Andrea 
• Word of mouth 
• “VIP” club on GitHub, by invitation only 
• Belonging, Self-Esteem 
• Mar 20, 2013: the project leeks on Hacker News 
• Hits front page & #1 
• 15K visits in a day 
• Huge interest from the 
HN community
Hacking Hacker News 1/3 
• HN = Tech early adopters 
• Use / Create tools for monitoring 
• Reminder: Track EVERYTHING 
• If the tool does not exist, create it! 
• Track your company and product & 
join the conversation as soon as possible 
• And track competitors too! 
• www.hnwatcher.com 
• Upvote and get to the front page 
• More traffic and brand awareness 
• Join the conversation as soon as possible 
• Your product/brand is not what you say it is. 
It is what THEY say it is 
• Create and/or Post Content that 
this community like 
• It is about what you can do for your community
Hacking Hacker News 2/3 
• Timing is important 
• Experiment 
• And track + document 
• Target different groups 
of people by posting at different times 
Source: http://blog.itlater.com/whats-the-best-time-to-post-to-hackernews/
Hacking Hacker News 3/3 
• Do not post obvious marketing content 
• Remember: you are here to help this community 
• Post in other social networks BEFORE 
• You will get more upvotes due to community posts 
• Belonging, Recognition 
• If it’s good content and if it does not work, Recycle! 
• Try same blog post but with a different URL 
• Try with different format 
• Blog post, Gist, Slideshare presentation, Youtube video, e-book, … 
• Help the Docker community 
• It is about what you can do for your community 
• Upvote and post their content too! 
• Recognition, Respect, Love 
• Add more links to your community 
• More brand awareness
The social network strategy 
• Tips from HN strategy are true here too (cf previous 3 slides) 
• Be everywhere! 
• Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Slideshare, Youtube, GitHub, 
Stack Overflow… 
• But do know where to put more efforts when you do not have enough time 
(track & measure!) 
• Use the specificity of each social network 
• Different users, different features, different post previews, etc… 
• Join the conversation as soon as possible 
• Your product is not what you say it is. It is what THEY say it is -> you 
want to be part of this conversation! 
• Identify leaders / influencers on each social media
Twitter tips of the day 
• Include authors & companies handles in your 
tweets 
• Recognition, Respect, Love 
• Add more links to your community 
• -> More RTs -> More reach -> even more links for 
your community + recognition for authors 
• NOTE: this is true for your team too! 
• Your team is a community 
• Everything is a community! 
• NOTE2: this is true for journalists too! 
• Everything is a community! 
• NOTE3: this is true for partners too! 
• Everything is a community! 
• It is ok to post several times
Twitter love + belonging example
Which twitter account should I use? 
• Founder: 5K followers 
• Company / product / brand: 500 followers 
• Who should post product releases, news & co? 
• Brand! 
• Build your company brand first! 
• Build your company’s community (vs founder’s community) 
• Be careful of Ego / Personal branding 
• The founder may leave, but the brand will stay 
• You don’t want the community to leave with the founder 
• Have the founder(s) RT the company tweet 
• Your logo is (theoretically) more eye-catchy & recognizable than your 
founder’s picture in a twitter stream
Social Networks: more tips 1/2 
• Post / RT your community’s content (blog post, articles, 
videos, …) 
• It is your way to say thank you 
• It is about what you can do for your community 
• Belonging, Recognition, Respect, Love 
• Add more links to your community 
• Encourages them to write more 
• Do the same for every social media 
• Use specificity 
• Don’t be lazy! 
• Do NOT use automatic / auto-posts tools 
• Do NOT use AddThis (or equivalent buttons) on your blog and websites 
-> terrible branding!
Social Networks: more tips 2/2 
• Include Photos / pictures in your articles 
• Or even better: Use Open Graph or equivalent 
(ogp.me) 
• -> More reach! (min 30% more clicks when you 
have a picture) 
BAD GOOD
Social Network: tracking tools 
• Use the right tools 
• It does not have to be fancy or expensive 
• What we use at Docker for Social Networks 
(& web) 
• Mention.net 
• HNWatcher.com 
• Twitter.com 
• (+ Google News for press) 
• Forget about Google Alert, it does NOT work 
• Track EVERYTHING
Content strategy 
• Write good content, unique & relevant 
• Write content your community wants to read 
• It is about what you can do for your community 
• Target likely amplifiers! 
• Forget about your SEO magic tricks 
• It does not work in the long run 
• Encourage your community to build content 
• Say thank you, repost, post, upvote, RT, include them in your 
newsletter, itw them, … 
• Belonging, Recognition, Respect, Love 
• Your team is your community too! 
• Say thank you, gamify, hall of fame, tweet, post, recycle, etc… 
• Belonging, Recognition, Respect, Love
Google search auto complete 
• This is what your community is looking for 
• Free tool! 
• Automate: http://keywordtool.io/
Buzzsumo 
• Find out what content did buzz on social medias
Why IRL community is so important 
• Community is like a network 
• Adds more link to your network 
• IRL links are more precious than Online links 
• It is all about people, so you want to meet them and build a stronger 
relationship 
• People like meeting other people to talk about ideas, problems, 
discover new tricks, etc... 
• Belonging, Self Actualization 
• A “meetup” visitor has more “value” than a website visitor 
• More engaged 
• More likely to stick with the product 
• Actually more likely to stick with YOU, the person they have just met 
• It is all about people 
• Use IRL as many times as possible 
• Mix formats 
• Regular meetups, Panels, Hack day, Hackathon, etc… 
• Provide Food + Drinks + Wifi! :)
Start small, and scale 
• Target meetups in your area 
• Target by topics, competitors, & attendees personas 
• Try to get a team member to talk (lightning talks) 
• Create your own meetup group 
• Can be in your office 
• Treat the first members with care and love 
• Scale yourself 
• Create second, third group where your team can go 
• Help your community build your community 
• See next slide 
• It does take more time and effort to grow the Offline community 
• Be sure to track this too! 
• RSVPs 
• Attendees 
• Members of local groups 
• Feedback (online/offline, surveys)
Help the community build the community! 
• Help Meetup (co-)organizers with 
• Best practices 
• Updates on the product & messaging + Content 
• Your product/brand is not what you say it is. It is what THEY say it 
is 
• Tools 
• SWAG 
• Tee-shirts 
• Stickers 
• Invite users to speak 
• People love to hear real life stories 
• Your product/brand is not what you say it is. It is what THEY say it 
is 
• Users love to speak (Recognition, Mastery, Self-Esteem) 
• Don’t make it a sales event! 
• It should be about the community first 
• Help them promote their event 
• Event page 
• Twitter and co 
• Newsletter 
• Love, Recognition, Belonging
Bring IRL back online 
• Adds more link to your community 
• Tweet about IRL events 
• Quotes, photos (tag ppl -> love!), numbers, 
interesting facts, etc… 
• Follow up with emailing / survey 
• Say thank you (send love!) 
• No sales speech 
• Add content they care about (it is about helping your community) 
• Include links to presentations they just saw 
• Include links to anything that could answer their questions 
• Include a link to your newsletter and / or online tutorial…
Bring online back to IRL 
• Adds more link to your community 
• IRL links are more precious than Online 
links 
• Add a page with the upcoming meetups and events 
• Include meetups and events calendar in your newsletter 
• Use twitter and co to inform people about the next event 
• Find any excuse to invite people to meet you 
• Regular meetup 
• Giving a talk at a conference 
• Panel 
• Celebration 
• Big news, Announcements, Previews, Proposals… 
• Hack day 
• Hackathon 
• Product update
Global Docker Hack Day 
• 1500+ attendees, in 30+ cities around the world 
• Includes both Online & Offline communities 
• More links! 
• Belonging 
• Each meetup group provides a (safe) venue + food + drinks + wifi 
• Main event in SF was broadcasted live 
• 2500+ views in 64 different countries 
• Recorded -> great content we then did post on social networks and co 
• Preview of 3 proposals 
• Self actualization 
• And get feedback from the community 
• 4 Partners involved (MSFT Azure, Rackspace, Digital Ocean, Online Labs) 
• Partners are part of your community (everything is a community, give love to your partners too) 
• 1 customer involved 
• How Docker is used at Yelp (Achievement Mastery Recognition Respect for the speaker) 
• People hack on Docker 
• They have to submit title + video + description -> great content 
• Best hack wins tickets to DockerCon Europe 
• DockerCon sold out, this is the only way to get tickets (Achievement Mastery Recognition Respect) 
• The community votes on social networks for the winner
Show the example 
• Show the example 
• Pre-brief co-organizers
The voting page 
• 36 projects submitted 
• Tweet to vote! 
• Add team twitter 
handles in the tweet! 
• Recognition, Love 
• Reach on Twitter: 3M+ 
• https://docker.com/community/globalhackday
End result 
• This was super FUN 
• Huge reach & noise everywhere 
• So much that press already referred and linked to content in several articles. (more SEO) 
• Thousands of tweets around Docker 
• And Docker Global Hack Day 
• Great position + Messaging was out and buzzing 
• Great feedback from the community 
• Great content was built 
• The whole Maslow pyramid was covered 
• We strengthened the community 
• Co-organizers 
• Hackers 
• Partners 
• Users 
• Online community 
• Community is happy 
• And winners will be super happy 
• They also wrote blog posts referring our content (more traffic + SEO) 
• Partners are happy 
• They also built content referring our content (more traffic + SEO)
Thank you! 
• Any questions? 
• Ping me to chat more about Marketing & Community: 
• julien@docker.com 
• @julienbarbier42

Community at Docker

  • 1.
    Community at Docker By Julien Barbier, Sr Dir of Growth, Marketing & Community at Docker
  • 2.
    About me •Julien Barbier • 2004-2008: Software engineer & Product Manager (Paris, France) • 2008-2012: Entrepreneur (Paris, France & Miami, FL) • Oct 2012-now: co-Founder of #while42 (International French Tech Engineers Network, 1500+ members in 30+ chapters around the World) • Oct 2012-now: Sr Director of Growth, Marketing & Community at Docker (ex-dotCloud, San Francisco, CA) • Contact me: julien@docker | @julienbarbier42
  • 3.
    About Docker •Build, Ship and Run Any App, Anywhere • dotCloud, Founded my Solomon Hykes, in France (2008), and “relaunched” in SF (2010) • dotCloud released Docker open source, Mar 2013 • Huge traction since then, in both user and enterprise adoptions led to a pivot • Huge online and offline community • Learn more: www.docker.com | @docker
  • 4.
    Community is thenew marketing • Community represents 80+% of our “Marketing” • Lower budget, Higher conversion rate vs traditional marketing Your product/brand is not what you say it is. It is what THEY say it is.
  • 5.
    Community, TL;DR; •Community is like a network • A community/network is as strong as the number of links between its members • IRL links are more precious than Online links • You do NOT own or control the community • It is NOT your community: you are part of it, you can influence it, but you do not own it • It is not what your community can do for you, but what you can do for your community • Your product/brand is not what you say it is. It is what THEY say it is. • Lower budget, Higher conversion rate vs traditional marketing • Communities everywhere! • At the end of the day everything is always about people
  • 6.
  • 7.
    Track and monitorEVERYTHING • Track and measure EVERYTHING • If it is useless now, it WILL be useful later • Integrate tracking and metrics EVERYWHERE • Should be part of your product release cycles • Should be part of every offline & online marketing campaign • Measure the impact of every change, update, new feature, campaign, tweet, meetup, event, press release… • Be both HUMAN and DATA DRIVEN
  • 8.
    The San FranciscoDocker VIP club • Jan 18, 2013: Initial commit • Closed source • Private presentations to startups by Solomon & Andrea • Word of mouth • “VIP” club on GitHub, by invitation only • Belonging, Self-Esteem • Mar 20, 2013: the project leeks on Hacker News • Hits front page & #1 • 15K visits in a day • Huge interest from the HN community
  • 9.
    Hacking Hacker News1/3 • HN = Tech early adopters • Use / Create tools for monitoring • Reminder: Track EVERYTHING • If the tool does not exist, create it! • Track your company and product & join the conversation as soon as possible • And track competitors too! • www.hnwatcher.com • Upvote and get to the front page • More traffic and brand awareness • Join the conversation as soon as possible • Your product/brand is not what you say it is. It is what THEY say it is • Create and/or Post Content that this community like • It is about what you can do for your community
  • 10.
    Hacking Hacker News2/3 • Timing is important • Experiment • And track + document • Target different groups of people by posting at different times Source: http://blog.itlater.com/whats-the-best-time-to-post-to-hackernews/
  • 11.
    Hacking Hacker News3/3 • Do not post obvious marketing content • Remember: you are here to help this community • Post in other social networks BEFORE • You will get more upvotes due to community posts • Belonging, Recognition • If it’s good content and if it does not work, Recycle! • Try same blog post but with a different URL • Try with different format • Blog post, Gist, Slideshare presentation, Youtube video, e-book, … • Help the Docker community • It is about what you can do for your community • Upvote and post their content too! • Recognition, Respect, Love • Add more links to your community • More brand awareness
  • 12.
    The social networkstrategy • Tips from HN strategy are true here too (cf previous 3 slides) • Be everywhere! • Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Slideshare, Youtube, GitHub, Stack Overflow… • But do know where to put more efforts when you do not have enough time (track & measure!) • Use the specificity of each social network • Different users, different features, different post previews, etc… • Join the conversation as soon as possible • Your product is not what you say it is. It is what THEY say it is -> you want to be part of this conversation! • Identify leaders / influencers on each social media
  • 13.
    Twitter tips ofthe day • Include authors & companies handles in your tweets • Recognition, Respect, Love • Add more links to your community • -> More RTs -> More reach -> even more links for your community + recognition for authors • NOTE: this is true for your team too! • Your team is a community • Everything is a community! • NOTE2: this is true for journalists too! • Everything is a community! • NOTE3: this is true for partners too! • Everything is a community! • It is ok to post several times
  • 14.
    Twitter love +belonging example
  • 15.
    Which twitter accountshould I use? • Founder: 5K followers • Company / product / brand: 500 followers • Who should post product releases, news & co? • Brand! • Build your company brand first! • Build your company’s community (vs founder’s community) • Be careful of Ego / Personal branding • The founder may leave, but the brand will stay • You don’t want the community to leave with the founder • Have the founder(s) RT the company tweet • Your logo is (theoretically) more eye-catchy & recognizable than your founder’s picture in a twitter stream
  • 16.
    Social Networks: moretips 1/2 • Post / RT your community’s content (blog post, articles, videos, …) • It is your way to say thank you • It is about what you can do for your community • Belonging, Recognition, Respect, Love • Add more links to your community • Encourages them to write more • Do the same for every social media • Use specificity • Don’t be lazy! • Do NOT use automatic / auto-posts tools • Do NOT use AddThis (or equivalent buttons) on your blog and websites -> terrible branding!
  • 17.
    Social Networks: moretips 2/2 • Include Photos / pictures in your articles • Or even better: Use Open Graph or equivalent (ogp.me) • -> More reach! (min 30% more clicks when you have a picture) BAD GOOD
  • 18.
    Social Network: trackingtools • Use the right tools • It does not have to be fancy or expensive • What we use at Docker for Social Networks (& web) • Mention.net • HNWatcher.com • Twitter.com • (+ Google News for press) • Forget about Google Alert, it does NOT work • Track EVERYTHING
  • 19.
    Content strategy •Write good content, unique & relevant • Write content your community wants to read • It is about what you can do for your community • Target likely amplifiers! • Forget about your SEO magic tricks • It does not work in the long run • Encourage your community to build content • Say thank you, repost, post, upvote, RT, include them in your newsletter, itw them, … • Belonging, Recognition, Respect, Love • Your team is your community too! • Say thank you, gamify, hall of fame, tweet, post, recycle, etc… • Belonging, Recognition, Respect, Love
  • 20.
    Google search autocomplete • This is what your community is looking for • Free tool! • Automate: http://keywordtool.io/
  • 21.
    Buzzsumo • Findout what content did buzz on social medias
  • 22.
    Why IRL communityis so important • Community is like a network • Adds more link to your network • IRL links are more precious than Online links • It is all about people, so you want to meet them and build a stronger relationship • People like meeting other people to talk about ideas, problems, discover new tricks, etc... • Belonging, Self Actualization • A “meetup” visitor has more “value” than a website visitor • More engaged • More likely to stick with the product • Actually more likely to stick with YOU, the person they have just met • It is all about people • Use IRL as many times as possible • Mix formats • Regular meetups, Panels, Hack day, Hackathon, etc… • Provide Food + Drinks + Wifi! :)
  • 23.
    Start small, andscale • Target meetups in your area • Target by topics, competitors, & attendees personas • Try to get a team member to talk (lightning talks) • Create your own meetup group • Can be in your office • Treat the first members with care and love • Scale yourself • Create second, third group where your team can go • Help your community build your community • See next slide • It does take more time and effort to grow the Offline community • Be sure to track this too! • RSVPs • Attendees • Members of local groups • Feedback (online/offline, surveys)
  • 24.
    Help the communitybuild the community! • Help Meetup (co-)organizers with • Best practices • Updates on the product & messaging + Content • Your product/brand is not what you say it is. It is what THEY say it is • Tools • SWAG • Tee-shirts • Stickers • Invite users to speak • People love to hear real life stories • Your product/brand is not what you say it is. It is what THEY say it is • Users love to speak (Recognition, Mastery, Self-Esteem) • Don’t make it a sales event! • It should be about the community first • Help them promote their event • Event page • Twitter and co • Newsletter • Love, Recognition, Belonging
  • 25.
    Bring IRL backonline • Adds more link to your community • Tweet about IRL events • Quotes, photos (tag ppl -> love!), numbers, interesting facts, etc… • Follow up with emailing / survey • Say thank you (send love!) • No sales speech • Add content they care about (it is about helping your community) • Include links to presentations they just saw • Include links to anything that could answer their questions • Include a link to your newsletter and / or online tutorial…
  • 26.
    Bring online backto IRL • Adds more link to your community • IRL links are more precious than Online links • Add a page with the upcoming meetups and events • Include meetups and events calendar in your newsletter • Use twitter and co to inform people about the next event • Find any excuse to invite people to meet you • Regular meetup • Giving a talk at a conference • Panel • Celebration • Big news, Announcements, Previews, Proposals… • Hack day • Hackathon • Product update
  • 27.
    Global Docker HackDay • 1500+ attendees, in 30+ cities around the world • Includes both Online & Offline communities • More links! • Belonging • Each meetup group provides a (safe) venue + food + drinks + wifi • Main event in SF was broadcasted live • 2500+ views in 64 different countries • Recorded -> great content we then did post on social networks and co • Preview of 3 proposals • Self actualization • And get feedback from the community • 4 Partners involved (MSFT Azure, Rackspace, Digital Ocean, Online Labs) • Partners are part of your community (everything is a community, give love to your partners too) • 1 customer involved • How Docker is used at Yelp (Achievement Mastery Recognition Respect for the speaker) • People hack on Docker • They have to submit title + video + description -> great content • Best hack wins tickets to DockerCon Europe • DockerCon sold out, this is the only way to get tickets (Achievement Mastery Recognition Respect) • The community votes on social networks for the winner
  • 28.
    Show the example • Show the example • Pre-brief co-organizers
  • 29.
    The voting page • 36 projects submitted • Tweet to vote! • Add team twitter handles in the tweet! • Recognition, Love • Reach on Twitter: 3M+ • https://docker.com/community/globalhackday
  • 30.
    End result •This was super FUN • Huge reach & noise everywhere • So much that press already referred and linked to content in several articles. (more SEO) • Thousands of tweets around Docker • And Docker Global Hack Day • Great position + Messaging was out and buzzing • Great feedback from the community • Great content was built • The whole Maslow pyramid was covered • We strengthened the community • Co-organizers • Hackers • Partners • Users • Online community • Community is happy • And winners will be super happy • They also wrote blog posts referring our content (more traffic + SEO) • Partners are happy • They also built content referring our content (more traffic + SEO)
  • 31.
    Thank you! •Any questions? • Ping me to chat more about Marketing & Community: • julien@docker.com • @julienbarbier42