“Webinar” is one of those words that carries a lot of baggage. It suggests a one-way broadcast, a dense slide deck, and an audience multitasking through most of it. Necessary? Debatable. Memorable? Rarely.

Developer education is most effective when it’s designed as enablement. Confidence, rather than awareness, is what ultimately drives advocacy and community growth.

That’s why our ongoing work with Meta’s developer communities, in support of their Go-To-Market Academy, has been such a meaningful shift. The focus is education that lowers the barrier to entry and helps participants see themselves as capable contributors within a much larger developer network.

This work taps a familiar muscle for our team, applied through a different format: translating complexity, meeting audiences where they are, and making information feel usable at scale.

Education as activation

Meta’s Go-To-Market Academy is designed to help developers, creators, and partners bring products to market with clarity, context, and fewer unknowns.

While this work is grounded in Meta’s Go-To-Market Academy, the approach applies to any platform supporting developers, creators, or partners.

In practice, that means treating each session like a participatory class, with an emphasis on breaking down complex concepts and giving attendees language, frameworks, and toolkits they can actually use.

When education is done well, it doesn’t feel like marketing. It feels like someone sliding a map across the table and saying, “Here’s where you are, and here’s a path you can follow.”

That’s where things click, and where advocacy starts.

Approach matters more than pedigree

The sessions have been led by members of our content marketing and public relations teams—not professional educators or presenters, but communicators whose core skills are clarifying complexity and translating nuance. That perspective shapes everything: a credible, conversational tone, and a focus on usefulness.

The result feels more like shared problem-solving than formal instruction, with guidance developed alongside the audience rather than delivered at them.

Authenticity and relatability are features here, not compromises.

Lowering the barrier to entry is a strategic move

One of the clearest lessons from this work is how powerful education can be when treated as a strategic lever. When education is designed this way, it becomes infrastructure for growth.

Lowering the barrier to entry expands who feels qualified to participate. It reduces friction and hesitation, creates shared language, and builds confidence across a broader community.

That matters whether you’re working in emerging tech, gaming, SaaS, or any platform built around developers, creators, or partners. People are far more likely to build, advocate, and invest their time when they feel informed rather than overwhelmed or talked down to.

Scaling developer education beyond live sessions

The real value of academy-style education shows up when sessions are treated as the start of the content lifecycle rather than a one-off moment.

A single live session can evolve into:

• on-demand video with a shelf life
• blog posts with highlights or transcripts
• how-to guides
• FAQ documentation
• onboarding or training material
• short-form social content
• a repeatable in-person session
• foundation for 1:1 education

Treating sessions as a starting point allows education to compound in value over time. When designed this way, education scales well beyond the virtual room, and far beyond the initial audience.

What it takes to do this well

Work like this isn’t about pretending to do everything in-house. It’s about understanding what the work requires and assembling the right support system around it.

For the Go-To-Market Academy, that incudes strong partners for AV, preparation, and production (shoutout to Scout House) while our team focuses on content, flow, examples, and audience experience.

It also means investing real time upfront with partners to pressure-test narratives, anticipate any points of confusion, and design sessions and takeaway materials that respect the audience’s intelligence.

How developer education builds confidence and advocacy

At its best, developer education builds confidence.

When attendees give the following feedback: “I understand this.” “I could actually do this.” “I know where to start.”

That signals that we’ve done something more valuable than information delivery. It signals participation and enablement, which is how ecosystems grow.

A different way to think about “webinars”

The biggest takeaway from this work is that the format matters far less than the mindset. Whether you call it a webinar, academy, session, or class, effectiveness comes down to respect for the audience and clarity of intent.

When people understand how to engage and feel confident doing so, advocacy follows.

If you’re exploring how developer or customer education can better support advocacy, enablement, or long-term adoption, we’d be happy to chat. Drop us a line.

Frequently asked questions around developer education

What is developer education?

Developer education is structured guidance that helps developers understand how to use a product, platform, or tool effectively. The best programs focus on clarity, context, and practical application, helping people move from understanding to real-world use.

What is the goal of developer education?

The goal of developer education is to lower the barrier to entry, build confidence, and help developers understand where and how they can participate, leading to stronger adoption and advocacy.

How does developer education drive advocacy?

Developer education drives advocacy by building confidence. When developers understand how something works and how to apply it, they are more likely to adopt it, recommend it, and advocate for it within their communities.

What’s the difference between a webinar and effective developer education?

Traditional webinars focus on information delivery. Effective developer education focuses on understanding, using participatory formats, real examples, and reusable frameworks that help developers apply what they’ve learned.

How should companies design developer education programs?

Developer education programs should be designed like classes, not broadcasts. They should break down complex concepts, anticipate common points of confusion, and provide tools and frameworks developers can reuse beyond a single session.