Stop losing DevRel connections after the first touchpoint. Use these 10 LinkedIn follow-up message templates built for developer advocates and community managers to turn conversations into collaborations.
Get Started FreeYou met a developer at a conference. You left a comment on their post. You connected after a talk. And then... nothing. For DevRel professionals, the follow-up is where community actually gets built — but most messages get ignored because they feel generic or salesy. These 10 templates are built specifically for developer advocates and community managers who need to move fast, stay credible, and keep conversations technical enough to matter.
Following up with a developer you met at a tech conference or meetup
Example
Hey Priya, great connecting at KubeCon. Your point about operator fatigue in multi-cluster setups stuck with me — it maps directly to something we're seeing in the Kubernetes community. Would love to keep that conversation going. Are you open to a quick 20-minute chat?
💡 Within 48 hours of meeting someone at a developer conference, meetup, or hackathon. The faster you send this, the higher your reply rate.
Following up with a developer who made a notable open-source contribution or community post
Example
Hey Marcus, I saw your PR on the Rust async runtime — specifically the work on cancellation safety improvements. That kind of contribution is exactly what moves the Rust ecosystem forward. We're building resources for developers like you at Fermyon. Would it make sense to connect and share what we're working on?
💡 When a developer you want to engage has been publicly active in an open-source project or community forum relevant to your platform.
Following up after someone attended your talk, webinar, or workshop
Example
Hey Jordan, thanks for joining 'Scaling Developer Portals with Backstage' — glad you were there. You asked about plugin authentication flows, and I wanted to follow up with something more concrete: here's our internal guide on OAuth integration with Backstage plugins. If you're exploring internal developer tooling, happy to go deeper. What does your current setup look like?
💡 After hosting a talk, live session, or workshop where attendees asked questions. Personalize around their actual question to stand out.
Moving a public LinkedIn comment thread into a private conversation
Example
Hey Tomás, I replied to your comment on API versioning strategies — but didn't want the real answer to get buried in a thread. The short version: breaking changes hurt adoption more than version complexity does. The longer version is worth a proper conversation. Got 15 minutes this week?
💡 When you've already engaged with someone in a LinkedIn comment section and want to deepen the relationship without it feeling like a cold pitch.
Reaching out to a developer who would be a strong community ambassador or advocate
Example
Hey Aisha, I've been following your work on WebAssembly tooling — your content on component model ergonomics shows you genuinely get the developer experience gap. We're building a developer ambassador program at Bytecode Alliance for people who actually build with Wasm. No fluff, just early access, real influence on roadmap, and a community of 400 developers doing similar work. Interested in hearing more?
💡 When identifying high-signal developers who create content, contribute to open source, or speak publicly about a technology area relevant to your platform.
First-touch outreach to a developer you've never interacted with but want to bring into your community
Example
Hey Lena, cold message — but a relevant one. I came across your GitHub repo on distributed tracing middleware and specifically noticed your custom span propagation logic. I work in DevRel at Honeycomb and we're focused on making observability more approachable for backend engineers. We have an open community Slack with 3,000 engineers talking about exactly this — not a sales pitch. Worth a look?
💡 For first-touch outreach to developers you've researched but never interacted with. Lead with something specific you actually read or used — it's the only way this works.
Following up with developers who participated in a hackathon your company sponsored or ran
Example
Hey Ravi, your API gateway project at ETHGlobal was one of the standout builds — the way you handled rate limiting across EVM chains in under 36 hours was impressive. Now that the dust has settled, are you continuing to develop it? We support builders going further with our grants program at Alchemy, and I'd love to connect you with the right people on our team.
💡 Within one week of a hackathon wrapping up, targeted at participants whose projects demonstrated strong technical depth or creative use of your platform.
Connecting with other DevRel professionals for peer knowledge sharing and community
Example
Hey Carolyn, I've been reading your posts on measuring DevRel impact — your take on vanity metrics vs. pipeline influence is one of the more honest perspectives I've seen on it. I'm in DevRel at Stripe working on our developer education programs. Always looking to connect with people who think seriously about this craft. Open to a peer chat sometime?
💡 When connecting with fellow DevRel professionals for peer learning, not recruitment. This builds your professional network and often leads to cross-community collaboration.
Proposing a co-created blog post, video, or tutorial with a developer or developer influencer
Example
Hey Dev, your content on Kubernetes cost optimization is solid — especially your breakdown of spot instance strategies. I'm working on a technical guide at Kubecost covering FinOps for platform engineers, and I think a perspective from someone building production multi-tenant clusters would make it significantly more useful. Would you be open to collaborating? We handle distribution to our 25,000 developer audience.
💡 When a developer creator's existing content naturally overlaps with a topic you're producing. Make the value exchange explicit — their insight, your distribution.
Reviving a conversation that went cold with a developer contact
Example
Hey Sam, we connected a few months back after you attended my talk on CLI design patterns. I know things get busy — no guilt. I'm reaching out again because we just open-sourced the framework I demoed, and the community around it has grown to 800 contributors. Given what you're working on with developer tooling at your startup, this felt worth a second try. Still interested in connecting?
💡 When a promising conversation stalled and you now have a concrete new reason to re-engage. Don't re-engage without a new hook — give them a reason to reply this time.
Reference something specific. Generic follow-ups get ignored. Mention the exact talk they gave, the exact repo they published, or the exact comment they made. Developers can smell a template that wasn't tailored to them.
Don't pitch on the first follow-up. Your goal is a reply, not a conversion. Ask a question, share a resource, or propose a conversation — not a demo. Build trust before you ask for anything.
Keep it short. DevRel follow-ups that exceed 5 sentences drop reply rates significantly. Make your point, make your ask, and stop. Developers respect efficiency.
Use Remarkly to stay visible before you send the DM. Commenting consistently on a developer's LinkedIn posts before reaching out turns a cold message into a warm one. They'll recognize your name.
Personalize the timing. Follow up within 24-48 hours after an event or interaction — that's when you're still memorable. For cold outreach, Tuesday through Thursday morning tends to see higher engagement from technical audiences.
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