How to get more than 3500 stars on GitHub in a week and why?
We recently launched a new project called Froala Design Blocks . A few days later we were on the list of the most popular GitHub repositories . A week later, we scored 3,500 stars and over the next two we consistently collected another 500 per day.
Unlike Twitter or Facebook, where you can get subscribers or likes through advertising schemes, on GitHub the stars you put are only those whom your project really impressed. Therefore, their number says a lot - it is a reliable indicator that awakens confidence and influences people's decisions when they think whether to try a product.
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Froala Design Blocks is not our first product, we have been on GitHub for several years now. But I only recently began to realize the value of the stars and to understand what rules should be followed in order for people to put them. So, I hope, both beginners and veterans will find here something new for themselves about how to fully utilize the potential of the stars for the presentation and improvement of their project.
A README file on GitHub is like the main page of a website. This is the first thing that visitors see, so it is important to make a good impression. It is possible that someone will click on the asterisk simply because the pictures are cool and the project seems to be interesting.
A good README contains all the key information so that developers can immediately understand what the essence of the project is, why it should be used and how to do it. There are many templates, I would recommend this one from Billie Thompson .
Although the README is usually written in Markup, try to make it beautiful anyway. Good content is not enough, in addition to useful information it should be design. Our brain reads visual information very well, but more cognitive efforts are needed to decrypt text. I would even say this: what the README looks like is more important than what it says.
How to make README beautiful? We have studied for this some excellent examples from the list that Matias Singers has compiled. But if you do not have time for this, then here is a brief squeeze:
The fact that your target audience is the developers does not mean that you can be lazy. After all, we are people too, although probably not everyone will agree with me here.
Let people know if you want them to participate, contribute, or make suggestions. As the administration of GitHub says, you must actively build cooperation yourself.
We took some ideas from our list of planned improvements and updates and added them to Issues. Issues on GitHub are not necessarily “problems” in the sense that this word implies. Among them you can see not only bugs (that is, really problems), but also new features. In addition, we have some fragments in the code that are not written in the most optimal way, and we understand this; There are also some topics that we would like to discuss. All this is suitable to start a conversation.
Finally, we put tags like help wanted , good first issue , enhancement and discuss on our Issues ( needing help , for beginners , improvement and discussion ). Some of the tags are not just for organization. GitHub advises those who want to have a hand in other people's projects to view the issues and pull requests under the tags wanted wanted and good first issue . The latter indicate that the authors are interested in cooperation.
Now that your page is ready to amaze people with beauty, it remains only to lure them there by any possible means. It all depends on your imagination.
We personally added a few buttons to the website that redirect users to GitHub. At the same time, we either asked visitors to express their opinion or vote for us, or simply used the button with an asterisk . Our site remains the main source of referrals, although there are plenty of other referrals from the repository too:
To begin with, the developers are sitting on GitHub, so put down the themes for your repositories - this way your project will be easier to find for those who specialize in relevant areas or try to find a solution for a specific problem.
Further, placing the project in popular package management systems is a great way to attract the attention of the audience. If your project is designed for front-end developers, look at NPM and CDNJS . Choose a system depending on what programming language you write. Let's say Ruby developers use RubyGems , Composer is for PHP, PyPi is suitable for Python, and .NET libraries are usually published on NuGet .
Feel free to join new groups on Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn and ask members to help you or share their opinions. Just be careful: if you do not know the measures, it can lead to spam and give the opposite effect.
So don't spam. I advise you first to check whether the rules of the community allow such posts, and then publish. In many communities that are related to our products, we have already managed to show ourselves as active participants by the time of publication. We also took into account the specifics of each group, customized the message text under it and selected the most relevant images.
If you have a website and people subscribe to news there, now is the time to remind them of your existence.
We had a list of more than 2,000 addresses - we sent letters to all these people with news about the launch. It is better to use special tools for automatic mailing, so that there are no unpleasant surprises.
Twitter is one of the best channels for distributing information to developers. However, if they themselves have to write some explanatory text, the process will take an extra step.
Help people easily post a tweet - add the “Share” button next to the README heading and make a ready text message in advance.
Below we give the code that was used for the Twitter button; adjust it by changing the text , url , via and hashtags parameters :
Advertising is an additional channel through which you can attract people to the repository, if, of course, you have money for it. But do not forget: the stars are not bought. Even those who come to your page on an ad will put a star only if they like the project. If the channels I mentioned work as they should, then the advertisement simply loses its meaning.
Our advertising costs were limited to $ 3 per day per campaign on Facebook. Its duration was 5 days, respectively, it cost us $ 15. It was necessary only to make the beginning of the cause and collect the first few hundred stars. The first two days she may have really worked for us, but the remaining three we were throwing money down the drain - the project was already gaining momentum.
In the next project on GitHub, I plan to invest more, but only in the first couple of days to start the process.
It makes a huge difference. People often put stars on free projects simply as a sign of respect or gratitude, while some users will not vote purely on principle for paid ones.
Froala Design Blocks is a free open source project, and it helped us a lot. For comparison, our other project , which is distributed for a fee, but deserves the attention and approval of leading IT-companies, has not received such popularity.
Getting there is extremely difficult. You will compete with the most powerful developers from around the globe. To get into the top of a particular language is a little easier, but not everyone can take the first position. Tips that I brought up to this should help you get up. If you succeed, many more people will see you, leading to organic growth. First, early followers usually look at these lists. Secondly, GitHub will write about you on Twitter, and the news will scatter.
All people are different, our needs and preferences are very different. If your project has gained popularity, be prepared for unflattering reviews. Some of them can help you improve the product, some can be considered as a matter of taste, and some obviously left just out of a desire to find fault.
Do not turn away from the negative, try to understand where it comes from. There will always be people who simply do not need what you are doing. If you can extract something from a negative review that will improve the product, then take a note. If not, then you shouldn’t argue.
On weekends, traffic to GitHub always drops. But deciding whether to publish your project on weekdays or at the end of the week should be based on who you are targeting.
Traffic drops for all projects, not just for yours. Publication at the weekend will not have a negative effect, but may slow growth.
However, freelancers and early followers, by contrast, are becoming more active on weekends. If you expect to attract first of all their attention and are confident that you will succeed, then this may give you a head start in trying to get into the list of popular products.
The question is fair, because all this will require a lot of work, and for what - some stars on GitHub? Below, I tried to summarize what benefits we have received from this and, possibly, you will get.
Traffic. GitHub now leads the list of referral sites for Froala Design Blocks. No matter how brilliantly you do search engine optimization, your website or domain will still have difficulty with GitHub attendance.
The opportunity to learn something new. GitHub is one of the main channels for those who want to develop their programming skills. However, for some reason they are often neglected, its potential is not appreciated highly enough. As a developer and founder of a startup, I am of the opinion that popularity among developers is a source of almost unlimited amount of information you need.
We learned a lot of new concepts, technologies and ways to refine the source code, thanks to the feedback that we received from other users. This helped us to make the project better and to enrich our knowledge in the field of IT.
Community. “Do not forget: we always stumble sometimes. That is why it is easier to go hand in hand. ” - Emily Kimbrough
Audience growth. Users will begin to subscribe to you and social networks. Accordingly, the next time you decide to publish a project, more people will see it.
The trust. If you leave aside early followers, developers are usually guided by popularity when choosing products that they plan to use. Stars are one of the reliable indicators of popularity, as well as the number of Issues and users interacting with the project.
Satisfaction. In addition to practical benefits, we, as developers, will experience a feeling of deep satisfaction when we see that thousands of people use our product and vote for it.
Good luck with your project!
Unlike Twitter or Facebook, where you can get subscribers or likes through advertising schemes, on GitHub the stars you put are only those whom your project really impressed. Therefore, their number says a lot - it is a reliable indicator that awakens confidence and influences people's decisions when they think whether to try a product.
')
Froala Design Blocks is not our first product, we have been on GitHub for several years now. But I only recently began to realize the value of the stars and to understand what rules should be followed in order for people to put them. So, I hope, both beginners and veterans will find here something new for themselves about how to fully utilize the potential of the stars for the presentation and improvement of their project.
Make a Stunning README
A README file on GitHub is like the main page of a website. This is the first thing that visitors see, so it is important to make a good impression. It is possible that someone will click on the asterisk simply because the pictures are cool and the project seems to be interesting.
A good README contains all the key information so that developers can immediately understand what the essence of the project is, why it should be used and how to do it. There are many templates, I would recommend this one from Billie Thompson .
Although the README is usually written in Markup, try to make it beautiful anyway. Good content is not enough, in addition to useful information it should be design. Our brain reads visual information very well, but more cognitive efforts are needed to decrypt text. I would even say this: what the README looks like is more important than what it says.
How to make README beautiful? We have studied for this some excellent examples from the list that Matias Singers has compiled. But if you do not have time for this, then here is a brief squeeze:
- Use shortcuts - they inspire confidence and summarize the information that interests the developer in the first place.
- Use pictures or gifs - it could be a banner, a logo, ideally something that would clearly demonstrate the essence of the product. But do not overdo it so that the attention of visitors does not dissipate.
The fact that your target audience is the developers does not mean that you can be lazy. After all, we are people too, although probably not everyone will agree with me here.
Tell directly what you need.
Let people know if you want them to participate, contribute, or make suggestions. As the administration of GitHub says, you must actively build cooperation yourself.
We took some ideas from our list of planned improvements and updates and added them to Issues. Issues on GitHub are not necessarily “problems” in the sense that this word implies. Among them you can see not only bugs (that is, really problems), but also new features. In addition, we have some fragments in the code that are not written in the most optimal way, and we understand this; There are also some topics that we would like to discuss. All this is suitable to start a conversation.
Finally, we put tags like help wanted , good first issue , enhancement and discuss on our Issues ( needing help , for beginners , improvement and discussion ). Some of the tags are not just for organization. GitHub advises those who want to have a hand in other people's projects to view the issues and pull requests under the tags wanted wanted and good first issue . The latter indicate that the authors are interested in cooperation.
Attract people to your page on GitHub
Now that your page is ready to amaze people with beauty, it remains only to lure them there by any possible means. It all depends on your imagination.
We personally added a few buttons to the website that redirect users to GitHub. At the same time, we either asked visitors to express their opinion or vote for us, or simply used the button with an asterisk . Our site remains the main source of referrals, although there are plenty of other referrals from the repository too:
Look for developer sites
To begin with, the developers are sitting on GitHub, so put down the themes for your repositories - this way your project will be easier to find for those who specialize in relevant areas or try to find a solution for a specific problem.
Further, placing the project in popular package management systems is a great way to attract the attention of the audience. If your project is designed for front-end developers, look at NPM and CDNJS . Choose a system depending on what programming language you write. Let's say Ruby developers use RubyGems , Composer is for PHP, PyPi is suitable for Python, and .NET libraries are usually published on NuGet .
Ask for community feedback
Feel free to join new groups on Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn and ask members to help you or share their opinions. Just be careful: if you do not know the measures, it can lead to spam and give the opposite effect.
So don't spam. I advise you first to check whether the rules of the community allow such posts, and then publish. In many communities that are related to our products, we have already managed to show ourselves as active participants by the time of publication. We also took into account the specifics of each group, customized the message text under it and selected the most relevant images.
Mailing List
If you have a website and people subscribe to news there, now is the time to remind them of your existence.
We had a list of more than 2,000 addresses - we sent letters to all these people with news about the launch. It is better to use special tools for automatic mailing, so that there are no unpleasant surprises.
Add the Share to Twitter button
Twitter is one of the best channels for distributing information to developers. However, if they themselves have to write some explanatory text, the process will take an extra step.
Help people easily post a tweet - add the “Share” button next to the README heading and make a ready text message in advance.
Below we give the code that was used for the Twitter button; adjust it by changing the text , url , via and hashtags parameters :
[](https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=Get%20over%20170%20free%20design%20blocks%20based%20on%20Bootstrap%204&url=https://www.froala.com/design-blocks&via=froala&hashtags=bootstrap,design,templates,blocks,developers)Do not get carried away with advertising
Advertising is an additional channel through which you can attract people to the repository, if, of course, you have money for it. But do not forget: the stars are not bought. Even those who come to your page on an ad will put a star only if they like the project. If the channels I mentioned work as they should, then the advertisement simply loses its meaning.
Our advertising costs were limited to $ 3 per day per campaign on Facebook. Its duration was 5 days, respectively, it cost us $ 15. It was necessary only to make the beginning of the cause and collect the first few hundred stars. The first two days she may have really worked for us, but the remaining three we were throwing money down the drain - the project was already gaining momentum.
In the next project on GitHub, I plan to invest more, but only in the first couple of days to start the process.
Free and open source
It makes a huge difference. People often put stars on free projects simply as a sign of respect or gratitude, while some users will not vote purely on principle for paid ones.
Froala Design Blocks is a free open source project, and it helped us a lot. For comparison, our other project , which is distributed for a fee, but deserves the attention and approval of leading IT-companies, has not received such popularity.
List of the most popular repositories on GitHub
Getting there is extremely difficult. You will compete with the most powerful developers from around the globe. To get into the top of a particular language is a little easier, but not everyone can take the first position. Tips that I brought up to this should help you get up. If you succeed, many more people will see you, leading to organic growth. First, early followers usually look at these lists. Secondly, GitHub will write about you on Twitter, and the news will scatter.
Accept negative feedback
All people are different, our needs and preferences are very different. If your project has gained popularity, be prepared for unflattering reviews. Some of them can help you improve the product, some can be considered as a matter of taste, and some obviously left just out of a desire to find fault.
Do not turn away from the negative, try to understand where it comes from. There will always be people who simply do not need what you are doing. If you can extract something from a negative review that will improve the product, then take a note. If not, then you shouldn’t argue.
Be careful with weekends
On weekends, traffic to GitHub always drops. But deciding whether to publish your project on weekdays or at the end of the week should be based on who you are targeting.
Traffic drops for all projects, not just for yours. Publication at the weekend will not have a negative effect, but may slow growth.
However, freelancers and early followers, by contrast, are becoming more active on weekends. If you expect to attract first of all their attention and are confident that you will succeed, then this may give you a head start in trying to get into the list of popular products.
But why?
The question is fair, because all this will require a lot of work, and for what - some stars on GitHub? Below, I tried to summarize what benefits we have received from this and, possibly, you will get.
Traffic. GitHub now leads the list of referral sites for Froala Design Blocks. No matter how brilliantly you do search engine optimization, your website or domain will still have difficulty with GitHub attendance.
The opportunity to learn something new. GitHub is one of the main channels for those who want to develop their programming skills. However, for some reason they are often neglected, its potential is not appreciated highly enough. As a developer and founder of a startup, I am of the opinion that popularity among developers is a source of almost unlimited amount of information you need.
We learned a lot of new concepts, technologies and ways to refine the source code, thanks to the feedback that we received from other users. This helped us to make the project better and to enrich our knowledge in the field of IT.
Community. “Do not forget: we always stumble sometimes. That is why it is easier to go hand in hand. ” - Emily Kimbrough
Audience growth. Users will begin to subscribe to you and social networks. Accordingly, the next time you decide to publish a project, more people will see it.
The trust. If you leave aside early followers, developers are usually guided by popularity when choosing products that they plan to use. Stars are one of the reliable indicators of popularity, as well as the number of Issues and users interacting with the project.
Satisfaction. In addition to practical benefits, we, as developers, will experience a feeling of deep satisfaction when we see that thousands of people use our product and vote for it.
Good luck with your project!
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/342600/
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