Once upon a time, a new invention changed the way we connect with our communities. It was called social media, and all you had to do was follow who you wanted to follow, and your feed would show you their posts in chronological order. You could scroll until you got to the end. And everyone was happy.
That was then. Today, the decision of which posts are shown to which people is dictated by a third party, the dreaded “algorithm.” And the algorithm doesn’t care who follows who (exactly), it cares which posts will get the most engagement by the most people. And unfortunately for all the small-time accounts out there, this often means it neglects to show our followers our posts.
At risk of these numbers being outdated the moment this blog is posted, I’ll share just a few examples: One source says in 2026, Instagram shows your post to only 3-6% of your followers. Another source cited 3.5% in 2025. These numbers may be even lower on other platforms.
Regardless of whether these numbers are exactly accurate, the concept is still rather alarming and confusing to anyone trying to build a social following. Wasn’t “our followers seeing our posts” the whole point of us joining social media? (Yes, yes it was.)
What do we do now?
We have two options.
- Get serious about social media. Follow trends, regularly post short-form videos, pay for advertisements, compete with influencers. Quit your day job. Hire a production team. Pray we go viral.
- Throw everything we learned about social media 5 years ago out the window and approach it differently.
Who’s with me for #2?
Rethinking Social
For plenty of us in the science and environmental sectors, social media is something we’re begrudgingly doing on the side. The good news is, there is a way to continue to do that that is productive and relatively painless (and doesn’t require quitting our day jobs).
Your social media account can still serve you even if it’s not a major source of engagement. Why? Because a surprising number of people — especially young people — may look at your social profile before they even look at your webpage. Some people use social media like it’s Google. Some people will pull up your social media profile to check to see if you’re legitimate, if you’re active, what your vibe is, and if you’re something they want to get involved in. And your social profile may be the only thing they look at.
The good news is, you can work in this system completely independently of the algorithm.
Your social media account should serve as your inviting front porch.
Think of your social account as the place where someone who is already interested in you will go first. They’re already in the neighborhood, and now they’re driving by before deciding whether they want to walk in the door. They’re still sitting in their car. Do they like what they see?
In other words, is your one Instagram post for the month, that got 8 likes, going to bring new people to the neighborhood? Absolutely not. Don’t let me ever catch you saying you’re “growing” your “audience” by posting once a month.
Is your entire Instagram profile, with one post per month for the past year, still serving a purpose by existing? Absolutely yes.
How to do (minimal) social well
If you’re running a social account that falls more into the “inviting front porch” than “wannabe viral influencer” category, keeping a few things in mind will make it work to your advantage.
First, if you’re able, I will still encourage you to post a little more often. People are checking to see if you’re active, and if your last post was three months ago, you are, in internet terms, not active. Make sure people visiting your profile know you are alive and still doing the good things you’re doing — preferably by posting at least monthly, if not weekly.
Next, think about how your profile looks as a whole, not just how each post looks. It may feel fine to post the same announcement once a week leading up to your big event, but when you pull up your profile and see the same image repeated over and over, you’ll see that it looks like spam. Think of your account as another site you’re updating, almost a portfolio of sorts. Show off a diversity of goodies. If you must repeat content, be sure to insert something different in-between to create some distance between the duplicates.
And last, if you’re doing social media at all, take some time to think about what “front porch” message you even want to get across. Is it “we’re having fun and you should join us?” What about “we’re doing vital work and require your support?” Put some thought into why you’re online at all, and that should inspire you when it comes to deciding what to post next.
Want to learn more?
I’d love to coach you through levelling up your social media presence. Let’s take an honest look at what you’ve been doing lately, consider what your expectations should be, and how your social accounts could be better serving you. Book a free 30-minute call to get started or reach out to anna@ampliflora.com.
If you’re in the participatory sciences, I’ve got a whole course for you on strategic communication that dives way deeper into these ideas and more! Check out the course page to learn more.