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SciCom - How to Win on Social Media
Published 8 months ago • 4 min read
Growing Your Social Media
Hi Reader, I would argue everybody can build a successful social media presence.
However, if you search for advice, few people will honestly tell you how to get there. Because the truth doesn’t sell well.
Still, building a channel is a valuable asset for your future. Therefore, I thought I'd share some unique tips & experiences to help you succeed.
And more importantly, help you do so without the frustration that is due to wrong expectations:
Listen Selectively
You’ll hear people say all sorts of things. From “social media is dumb” to “you need to post 3 times a day if you want to grow.”
In my experience, none of these are universally true.
I can only recommend watching the video about ugly ads - it’s about Meta ads, but here’s my little secret: a similar principle applies to LinkedIn content. It's not as extreme there but the new perspective will certainly be helpful. But Psst, this is a pro tip. My overall takeaway: Gary Vee, Alex Hormozi, and The Futur -or in this case, Jamin Alic - are definitely worth watching to get into the right mindset for content creation. Just don’t fall into the trap of thinking their way is the only way to be successful.
The key is not to believe that successful people have the silver-bullet solution, but to figure out which part of their truth applies to you.
Just as Wilhelm Reich said: everybody is right somewhere – therefore, listen to gurus but try to translate their insights to your current situation.
Differentiate Well
The issue with advice you hear in podcasts or videos from big science communicators or Youtubers is that they have big channels, but you don’t.
That’s one of the most important lessons I’ve had to learn. Your path follows different rules if you don’t already have an audience.
Tip: Click to enlarge. The Nobel Prize LinkedIn profile is the perfect example of large-channel advantages. Their posts have 771, 2,349, and 490 reactions—but no small channel could get away with their posts: generic or non-exciting thumbnails, unexciting or uninformative captions; hookless first lines, and including a link which typically kills reach. Although you could expect more with >1M followers, it’s probably still enough to maintain attention and grow the channel. Try doing the same as a small channel… and even after 3 years of posting, you likely won’t get anywhere. Of note, they also have cool posts like this one that fits this format.
Three examples should drive this home:
1. Idea: To increase engagement with your audience, make posts framed as questions, create quizzes or lotteries!
Big channel: Amazing idea. It gets comments which drives the algorithm to show it to more people, gives insight into what your audience wants, and makes your channel interactive and relatable.
Small channel: Your post will probably not get a single comment. The issue: you don’t have an audience yet. Nobody knows you. If a stranger on the street would run at you, asking you a question that is related to anything else but a direction, you would feel irritated too, right?
2. Idea: Build a personal brand, let people know you, show yourself.
Big channel: Fantastic strategy. People relate to faces. Once they recognize you, your thumbnails perform better, and producing content becomes easier as you can just stream. Furthermore, it opens doors to interviews and in-person events.
Small channel: Your first few times in front of the camera will probably feel cringy - this is recognizable and will hurt your engagement, even if your content is solid. Why? Nobody knows you, so people will likely think “Who’s that?” instead of focusing on your message. And on thumbnails an unfamiliar face can signal irrelevance.
On the left, you see a thumbnail from one of my LinkedIn posts that I made quite a while ago. For these kinds of “accomplishment” posts on LinkedIn, showing yourself - or a group of people - works really well, no matter who you are. When it comes to YouTube, though, I’d argue you should only show a face prominently if it’s already well known. You can watch the YouTube Short here (it was my first successful one—and below, you’ll see its crazy stats).
Important note: Of course, that’s a common pattern, not a rule. There are many exceptions. For example, showing your face on LinkedIn for "accomplishment" posts can work well for small accounts. And if you're doing trendy TikToks or Instagram reels, showing your face is often necessary.
3. Idea: Post at least once but optimally multiple times a day.
Big channel: Of course. People who like you often want to watch or read your content daily. Plus, you probably have an entire team helping you refine, edit, and distribute (although the channel is framed around a single person).
Small channel: If you can, do it, it’ll speed things up. However, your priority should probably focus on finding the right balance between quality and quantity first. Your posts aren’t just about growth; they’re as much about learning and improving your content so people watch/read it at all.
Just FYI: many large channels spend five to six figures on a single 10-minute YouTube video. Try to compete with that.
A Final Thought: It Will Take Time
This is the hardest part. If you want to succeed on social media, you’re in it for the long run.
This is a graph from YouTube Studio, where you can analyze the performance of your content. What is there to notice? It took several months before this Short gained significant traction. That means months thinking you suck at creating content. If you look closely, you see a sharp initial rise - it got a few thousand clicks within the first day and then sat there for months.
Overnight success is rare. And even when it happens, those who go viral early on either have only a few successful pieces or crash when the trend fades.
Most “overnight” success stories took 3–5 years of work.
You just didn’t see them during their early years. Advice I’ve heard from multiple creators: Just upload. And with every post, try to improve at least one thing.
The difficult and yet refreshing thing: You must figure out which path is yours
How We Feel Today
Special: If You Want To Grow Anyway
As a little reward for everyone who has scrolled up to this point: Let me invite you to a series that I will create to help you kickstart your growth!
I will share the keys I’ve identified to double and triple the following of channels in two webinars plus additional resources.
No matter whether you already have a channel or not, this could help you grow - it won't make it instantly but much faster and easier. If you decide that is for you: sign up here (takes 1 minute).
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