I used to hate posting about work on social media. Here's how I changed.

Does the idea of sharing your work online or 'building your profile' make you gag? Me too, until a couple of years ago. Then this happened.

For the past decade or so, every time I came across another writer’s social media feed in which they talked about what motivated them, listed the all-star cast of publications they had written for, featured the books they had written (and accompanying festival appearances and speaking gigs), I would slump in my chair and wonder “how the hell do they have time to post this often?”, followed swiftly by the guilty thought that I should be posting my stuff online too.

I would have a spurt of trying to post on Twitter (which wasn’t the wasteland it is now) or LinkedIn, but I would feel paralysed by overthinking over what to post as it always felt so hideously braggy to me. As science journalists, we’re trained not to put ourselves in the limelight at all, to fade into the background like a ghost, quietly proud if a story is appreciated by readers, but never making it about us. Trying to shout about my work felt like being an unbearable brat. Like there was a voice inside my head squealing “you’re being a showoff, stop it immediately.”

What didn’t help was that people who seemed to grow their social media followings were either: pontificating as if they had the answer to everything, oversharing to excruciating levels about their personal lives, or doing pointing-giggling reels on Instagram. All of which made me nauseous and feel like I would die of embarassment so I just… didn’t post much at all.

What I failed to see is that my fear of looking stupid had made me far less visible than others who were adept at showcasing their work. It’s hard to admit this now, but I definitely felt a dollop of envy at seeing other writers (who I felt were no more skilled than I was) land juicy opportunities to write books or explore the world. They had done the work of being visible and building their personal brand, and I, who had done sweet fuck all, was somehow jealous? I’m not proud of this, but there you go.

So when did I have my ‘Come to Jesus moment’ as my friend from North Carolina puts it? It wasn’t, as you might think, when I was promoting my memoir in 2023. My sister Poorna Bell, much more savvy at social media who navigates it with grace, tried her best to chivvy me along giving me advice on how I could post about my book publication in a way that didn’t make me feel like a tool. And she got me to a 30% comfort level, to her credit. But it still didn’t feel natural enough for me to do as often as I should have been. Then I did a gamechanging social media course with Lucy Sheridan who, appropriately enough given how I felt like I always fell short compared to the online enthusiasm of other writers, is also an expert in coaching people to avoid falling into the comparison trap.

Both Poorna and Lucy guided me with huge patience into a way of sharing stuff online that felt authentic to me. They also gave me a (gentle) reality check in which I had to (a) get over myself in terms of embarassment and (b) understand that if this was going to help my business I needed to figure out how to do it. And that was the clincher really.

My loathing of being seen to show off or boast was a deadly combination of being British and a woman and an ethnic minority. It was a triple strike of indoctrination that I must at all times keep my head under the parapet.

But to put it mildly, that was stupid as hell. If someone I went to school with thinks my Instagram reels are idiotic, so what? She isn’t paying my bills. If a fellow science writer thinks I’m showing off, so what? They’re not making sure my kid has clothes and food on the table.

It might sound dramatic to say, but the fear of social embarassment is the thing that could literally kill your business.

In a digital world, unless you have some super-niche skill that people search you out from around the globe, you are going to have to be visible. And for most of us, that will generally mean going on social media. Organisations want to see your virtual shopfront, as it were, and to be able to Google you to see what you’re about. In a sea of freelancers, you need to have a personal brand that people can immediately grasp.

But it’s not just that. I’ve started to see that actually being visible online and letting people know what I’m good at is incredibly helpful for people who are looking to hire people with my skills. Imagine if you were looking for a builder, and all the builders were too shy to advertise, and so you had to spend months trying to find one? Or if supermarkets didn’t want to brag about what they sell, so it was a mission just to figure out where buy your food?

Put your own fear of embarassment into a real-world business context and it seems bonkers.

And the benefit of shouting about your work online is that once you’ve done it almost every day for a couple of years, it becomes such a natural part of your day, you stop worrying about it.

If you’re where I was a few years ago, give yourself a target to post - maybe 2 or 3 times a week - set a reminder on your phone, do not let yourself make excuses, and just share something you have worked on or something you are working on, or a point of view.