Professionals' self-media

In today’s world, individuals have many ways to spread their influence. From a format perspective, there are text, audio, images, and video. From a content perspective, there are professional, popular, and somewhere in between. Today, I’d like to sort through these options.

First, our discussion is limited to the professional domain. We focus only on how someone who is already recognized as a professional can use different media to share their ideas and expand their influence. Therefore, we exclude influencers or cases where content is shared solely for entertainment or casual purposes.

Let us start from the perspective of format. Text is undoubtedly the oldest and most universal medium. For expressing ideas, it is the most precise and faithful form, to the extent that Wittgenstein once said, “The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.” Text also has the highest input efficiency: in the same amount of time, you can gain far more information from reading a book than from watching a video. Its drawback is that few people are accustomed to reading for long periods. Nevertheless, using text as the foundational medium for your thinking has far more advantages than disadvantages.

Next, let’s talk about podcasts. I personally don’t listen to them very often. However, I believe their greatest value lies in recording interviews and conversations. Some texts are presented in a dialogue format, but capturing the conversation directly in audio form is far more effective. It also eliminates many cumbersome steps—you just need to press the record button.

Let’s take a look at video. In fact, video is currently the largest medium on the market with the widest audience. Many people may not have heard of Substack or Medium, but I think the vast majority are familiar with YouTube. The advantage of making videos is that they allow more people to get to know you, but the downside is that producing them requires a lot of time.

Apart from the medium of communication, another aspect is the content itself. Let’s examine it from professional to popular content. Highly professional content has a small audience, but it showcases your expertise and might even earn you some loyal followers. Popular content, on the other hand, can reach a much wider audience. This reminds me of Taleb’s “barbell strategy”: he writes either highly specialized articles or very accessible ones, but never anything in between.

A quick word about Twitter: it’s like a public marketplace, where you can post your own promotions or support those of others.

So, for my own situation, my strategy is as follows: I publish my most professional academic content as papers. For written content that cannot be published academically, I place the more professional pieces on my personal website (many top technical experts’ blogs only feature professional content) and the more popular, accessible content on Substack or Medium. Podcasts are used to record conversations with others, while videos are used to create introductory, foundational knowledge. I try to maintain a weekly update schedule—I hope I can stick to it, haha.