ChemScrapes has been through many phases over the years. From the early paper and pen days, to multiple social media channels, ChemScrapes has always tried to adapt and change to reach new audiences and communicate chemistry in non-conventional ways to make it even more fun. The opportunity to move to a new platform to host ChemScrapes has allowed time for some reflection on audience engagement over the last few years in particular.

The different social media channels have very different audiences with different expectations. What works well on one from an engagement point of view on one platform, does not necessarily work well on another. Bluesky (like the old ChemTwitter) is more dynamic than the other platforms, and has a growing community amongst the chemistry population there. Threads is a potential close second in terms of the possibility to interact, but I have found it hard to get traction on that platform – perhaps because a number of the users are coming over from Instagram. Instagram is a clear winner in terms of reach and engagement – but the person-to-person interaction is very low, and hence so is the sense of community. Facebook is a tough crowd! Engagement is low in my experience, and the community does not appear as interactive. Tiktok is also hard to crack in my experience – the trends change so quickly, and the audience is really looking for more than static images and sketchy animations. Reddit I gave up on. The chemistry reddit community rules are simply too pedantic – “this is not Chemistry content” (!?!), “this is not a meme”, “this content should be in the other subreddit”. Very random and frustrating. YouTube is a great place as a repository for videos to direct people to for mechanistic animations, but again, the engagement is low – possibly because the ads last longer than my videos there.

In theory, understanding what works well on each platform should allow me to tailor the content for the most engagement on each platform – but then this also means that the ChemScrapes portfolio becomes very decentralised. In addition, the time needed to keep up with all the different platforms would make ChemScrapes less of a hobby and more like a full time job (without a salary). So, where does the future of ChemScrapes lie? It will be this site.

Basing ChemScrapes in a website might seem like going back in time, but at least it’s not GeoCities (look it up). There are tools to easily share posts across different platforms, promote content, and be more flexible in the types of content I can have in a single place. I am not interested in the number of followers for ChemScrapes on any one platform, but more about making sure the content reaches the people where it will resonate the most.

So, some thoughts on the future of ChemScrapes on the different platforms:

• ChemScrapes.net will be the central place for all ChemScrapes activity. You can expect to find stories behind some collaborations, opinions of chemistry research, behind the scenes look at the creative process, general thoughts on career development, non-chem content etc.
• Bluesky will continue to be home to where all the spontaneous, interactive, community-driven content. The platform is such that content from the site can also be easily shared there.
• Instagram will continue to be the home of creative content. There will be a new ChemScrapes Channel established to share content from the site for those who are interested.
• Facebook and Threads already automatically link to Instagram in terms of content generation, so these platforms will basically maintain themselves. There is an option to extend the Instagram channel to these platforms too, which will be considered after a trial period.
• YouTube will remain as is – a repository for all ChemScrapes animations.
• Tiktok will be used only for mechanistic videos. I am way to self conscious to put my face in front of the camera and be silly.
• X (Twitter) I have absolutely no interest in X as a platform. The chemistry community basically dissolved there, and there is little point trying to interact. Bluesky is the new Twitter from the ChemScrapes perspective.