Why your audience doesn’t seem to care about you.

We just finished a month of intensive coaching across a handful of projects. All solo creators or science communicators working on climate and science content. People with different goals, different platforms, but all kind of dealing with the same pain point:

A mismatch in content fit.

Something was keeping them stuck:

Good ideas were not getting traction.
Strategies based on vague audience assumptions and unclear promises.
The packaging didn’t match with what people consume on the platform.

Inside those sessions we used a “helicopter view” of content fit (more below). Because we kept coming back to the same nodes: your voice, time, energy, pillars, series, hooks, retention, CTA, distribution… and data (a lot of data). There was a pattern here.

That’s what I want to get into with this article. Over a sprint of 4 sessions we saw how those puzzle pieces clicked into place. And as a result, every step got easier. This is the distilled playbook of all those sessions.

First, I’ll define content fit and why it’s so difficult to get right.
Then we’ll look at the two sides of the bridge, Creator and Audience, with practical fixes.
Finally, I’ll give you a short diagnostic so you can find the first weak link in your system (and know exactly what to do next).

- These are the learnings from our new coaching series where we help creators and science communicators get unstuck within a 4 week sprint.
- Most blocks in our coaching sessions were content fit issues: unclear audience, fuzzy promise, posts with the wrong packaging, or unsustainable workflows (plus a hint of perfectionism/fear of rejection).
- Content fit = (audience) × (promise) × (packaging) × (cadence). If any term goes to zero, the fit between you and your audience collapses. Even with “good” ideas.
- All nodes work together: You (voice, time, cadence) → System (topics → clusters → pillars → series, visual standards) → Audience (one clear persona/decision) → Packaging (title/first slide/thumbnail on purpose) → Data loop (small tests vs your baseline).
- On the creator side: mental blocks can keep you as stuck as the strategy you’re trying to set up.
- On the audience side: you need to go deeper than “the public,” translate your POV into their problems today, treat packaging as half the work of a post, design for retention, and make that next step obvious.
- Use the Content Fit Diagnostic at the end to find your weak links and fix one thing this week. This works for solo creators, science communicators, and comms teams.

What is content fit?

And why you might be struggling to get it right.

Content fit is the moment your message, your audience, and your packaging fall into place. It’s the moment when the right people instantly understand why your content is for them and want to consume more.

Practically, it looks like this:

A specific person
with a specific problem
finds a post with a clear promise
delivered in a format they’re primed to consume
on the platform they’re already using.

When fit is there, thinking about metrics feels “natural”. In other words, you don’t have to worry that much about strategy, because you know you’re making it for the right people and the right reasons.

Or in other, other words:

You don’t need to fight for clicks
Retention on your carousels or videos goes up over time
Comments reference your promise
You don’t feel exhausted to publish again next week

For all us science geeks out here, I think of it as a simple equation:

Fit = (audience) × (promise) × (packaging) × (cadence)

If any term goes to zero, fit collapses. Most creators try to fix this by making “better” content. We keep working on that perfect thumbnail or spend 5 more hours in the edit… But in practice, better ideas don’t fix a broken presentation of your idea. More output doesn’t fix a vague promise. Not knowing your audience will result in “throwing spaghetti at the wall, and seeing what sticks”.

→ We have to repair the bridge between what you want to say and what your audience wants to hear.

Why it’s so difficult to get right

Content fit is multi-causal and so it’s difficult to see all the connections between all the nodes (that’s actually what all the students got better with over time).

Especially if you look at scientific papers on what works on social media. I’ve seen scientist “research” why certain thumbnails work, but not account for:

The style of the thumbnail in relation to the audience needs
Who that audience actually was
Why that framing worked for that audience (or not)
If the topic was trending or not, with that audience
How that thumbnail and title worked together
If the intro was an extension of the thumbnail
What the retention looked like for the video
Why the video actually worked well with the audience

A thought-leadership post underperforms and we conclude “LinkedIn is dead,” or a video doesn’t get 1000 views in the first 24 hours and we blame the algorithm. But platforms (and by extension algorithms) mostly amplify clarity.

Instead, when fit is right, the same video suddenly starts spreading like wild fire. Your post on LinkedIn get’s reposted and people flock to the comments. That’s when you know everything was aligned.

In the next sections we’ll repair the bridge from both ends.

First, the Creator side: with focussing on your voice, time, pillars, packaging and systems.
Then the Audience side: think specificity, problem–solution mapping, and format choices.

The Creator side

Let’s start with what only you can control: your voice, the time you work on your content, pillars and themes you can return to, packaging, and your feedback loop.

In the coaching sprint, a lot of the problems traced back to one of these nodes in the helicopter view you’ve seen above. So let’s take a deeper look:

1) Voice & brand promise

(vague identity → clear value)

Yes, many creators and science communicators have a strong internal compass. That’s what I love about the creator space. But the outside world can’t just read what you have in mind.

Internally, your mission might be extremely obvious… But externally, the channel or profile often feels like “a mix of everything.” And as a result, people don’t know if your work is for them or why they should stay on your page.

In sessions, we solved this by writing down a simple value proposition:

Why someone would stop to look at your content in the first place.
Why someone should spend time with you, not just what topics you cover.
Why someone would tell their friends about you.

Once your promise is clear, it starts to tie everything together: your pillars start to make sense, your recurring series start a content binge with your audience (you know, they keep watching your content for hours on end), and even the way you frame a content piece has a reason now.

Think of the promise as the line you can put in your bio and prove in every post: “If you follow me, you’ll get X (outcome).”

I help [who], achieve [outcome], by [approach/angle], not [what it’s not].
Example:
I help content creators outside of the climate bubble, integrate more climate topics into their strategy, by showing them case studies and the tools they need to do so, not by overloading them with climate conversations. (Yes, I had to work on our promise as well)

2) Time, energy & cadence

(unsustainable → shippable)

Combine your good idea with a bad workflow and it will stil take up a lot of mental load. And that isn’t sustainable in any way. So, what goes wrong there?

Many creators try to design everything from scratch (this was me 🙋🏻‍♂️),
or choose formats that eat away entire days (this was/is me too 🙋🏻‍♂️🙋🏻‍♂️).
And so you become inconsistent (🙋🏻‍♂️🙋🏻‍♂️🙋🏻‍♂️).
You have no feedback loop to improve your content, which keeps you stuck (🙋🏻‍♂️🙋🏻‍♂️🙋🏻‍♂️🙋🏻‍♂️).
You might even fall into what they call a creator burnout (🙋🏻‍♂️🙋🏻‍♂️🙋🏻‍♂️🙋🏻‍♂️🙋🏻‍♂️).

At that point you need to find a content system that works with you, not against you.

We’re talking: templates, checklists, weekly time blocks and monthly sprints. When the cadence of creating content is sustainable to hold onto, you’ll put in more reps. As a result, you’ll learn about what works and doesn’t work a whole lot faster. Plus it keeps you publishing consistently.

A caveat here:

You need to design that system for the actual you, not the most optimized version of yourself that might never exist.

So fit your posting schedule to the life you actually have this month. For scientists and climate teams, that often means a repeatable “one deep, one light” rhythm:

one substantial post (thread, carousel, or video) focussed on your promise
plus a lighter derivative (clip, quote, chart) that reinforces it.

3) Topics → Clusters → Pillars → Series

(scattered content → repeatable focus)

Another common blocker was having too many topics, too many interesting angles, but no recurring patterns. We fixed this by clustering ideas into 3–4 pillars. These pillars are the themes both you and your audience care about and you can sustain.

From pillars, we then started to design series with fixed promises and formats. A series can give you the creative box to play around in. But it also makes the audience’s expectation very real and explicit. In short: you know what to make, they know what to expect.

Again… a caveat:

These pillars live on the creator side, but get validated on the audience side via content engagement.

When content from a specific pillar resonates and people show up, double down with more episodes in that series. You can use the comments to know what to focus on.
When it doesn’t, refine the promise of the series, try a few different topics or retire it all together.

The key mindset and perspective shift here: treat your analytics as feedback on content fit between pillar and person, not on your worth as a creator.

4) Visual system & accessibility

(ad hoc → recognizable)

When you’re starting out with content creation, every post typically starts out as a blank canvas. In this phase you burn more time on figuring out your style, and usually overindex the visuals > the message. Over time, that’s how you grow your voice and get recognizable. Great!

But when you keep this process going in later phases as a creator, you’ll loose a lot of precious time. That’s why I tell students to work with a standardized visual system:

a small color palette (60, 30, 10 color rule)
legible font (especially on mobile)
reusable visual elements or layouts
contrast that creates visual hierarchy

The goal here is not to create “pretty” content, rather focus on the readability for the right person, in the right context. And the more consistent your visuals become, the more they compound into the memory of what your brand looks like.

Plus, a repeatable layout makes it easier to publish faster and to collaborate. If you work with a team, any member can drop content into the template without breaking the brand. And if you’re a solo creator, you can send these layouts or templates out for collaborations with other creators.

One last point: for science and climate content, visual coherence also supports your credibility. Think about the bad designs you’ve seen over the years… do they feel professional? And if not, what do you think that does to the credibility of your story?

5) Personal barriers

(perfection → experiments)

Last but not least: the very personal mental blocks that came up during our conversations. All of the students of the beta sprint got stuck in their own head, one way or another. Why do I mention this?

Because it also intervened with their content creation process, knowingly or not. Just know that this is a normal part of being a creator (and a human being). Wondering why it’s happening will help you get ahead.

Here are a few things that popped up during our talks:

Identity permission and imposter syndrome: You hear this in sentences like “Am I allowed to be the face of this topic” or “I’m not qualified enough to post about this.”
Fear of rejection: You might avoid publishing because of the fear that it won’t work out in the end. This turns into procrastination or self-labeling it as “laziness”, rather than calling out the fear.
Perfectionism and control: You might delay starting the project until your brand, visuals, or format feel perfect. This gives a false sense of control and keeps you from actually getting your work out into the world.
Time and energy drains: If you’re not creating as a full time job, your day job can push the creative work into your low energy windows. You have to work during hours you’re not really productive anyway… And so you feel guilty you can not focus on what truly matters to you.
Audience paralysis: This shows up as hesitating to publish because the “who” is still fuzzy.
Over-intellectualizing: When you default to do more research or strategy talk before publishing, instead of posting it like the small experiment it should be. The research and “prepping” become a coping mechanism.
Packaging procrastination: This is when creating thumbnails, titels or hooks feels draining or “not my thing,” so you postpone the work. Or you just “get it over with” and create a half-finished version. This ties back into fear of rejection and perfectionism. It’s easier to feel okay when you don’t get confronted with your “own failings” or what you’re not good at.
Outcome anxiety: This is the stress about your uploads performance or episode “success”, especially in relation to guest appearances or sponsored posts. Each upload starts to feel like very high stakes. There’s a lot of mental load for the episode to “do well”.
Analytics anxiety: You keep trying to make sense of what is wrong and start tying the numbers to your self worth. If a video flops “I wasn’t good enough”.

As I said, these are all very real and very normal blocks for creators. They show us where our personal triggers lay, and which emotions we don’t really have a grip on yet. Being aware of them is a first good step, being kind to yourself an even better one. And of course, know that there is professional help if you need it.

The Audience side

Then there is the other side: the people actually consuming your content. Most “audience problems” we saw during the coaching were tied to understanding our audience and the context wherein they consume content.

When we treat the audience as one blob (“people who like climate/science”) it blurs the promise we can make for them. It also makes packaging feel very generic and kind of boring. Nobody really feels like you're talking to them.

Your goal is to pick a who, name their reality right this moment, and meet them in the place and format they already are used to. Then you can earn the right to expand from there.

Think of this section as a reality check. If a piece underperforms, it’s rarely because the audience doesn’t exist. The disconnect is there because they didn’t recognize themselves fast enough. The fixes below pull that recognition back into your work.

1) Go beyond “the public”

(generic → personas)

We usually think we know our audience, but I bet you can go a few layers deeper than you realize. Even for Creators for climate, it’s not always that easy…

When we think of “scientists”, “policy makers” or “climate creators”, those are still our audience groups.

For example, those scientists? We could go deeper into these audience personas:

Marine biologists focussing on management of ecosystems
Environmental engineers studying ground water dynamics
Data scientists working on improving climate models

And all of a sudden it becomes very clear that we need to use different words for each of these scientists. So, if you want to improve fit with your audience fast, narrow the target group until your language stops sounding generic.

In the sessions we explored 4 audience groups that would engage with the creator’s work and wrote out a brief persona for each group:

Their current problem or how the topics tied into their life
Vocabulary they use and style
Constraints they had (think about time, tools or roles they play)
Where they hang out, off and online.

If you can’t name a concrete decision they’re trying to make this week, you’re still too broad. Some might be afraid to go specific and shut some people out. But I’d prefer to look at it from a different angle: it gives you a starting point. You can meander out later.

One content piece = one person = one decision.

When the framing is “for everyone,” no one knows it’s for “them”.

2) Translate your POV into their problem

(what’s this about? → this is for me!)

People don’t wake up wanting more “biodiversity insights” or “climate news”. They wake up wanting fixes for their problems, questions or decisions they have to make. Content fit happens when your perspective is phrased as the solution to their problem in their words.

So before drafting, ask yourself: What decision is this person trying to make today? Start by listing the decisions your personas are stuck on, then frame your idea/content as the tool that helps them move.

As experts this might be difficult at first. After all, we want to be accurate and complete. But our audience gets overwhelmed with all the details. They usually don’t understand the jargon, and as a result, they might think: “this post is not for me”.

You can do a quick rewrite test before publishing:

State your idea in your own words → then reframe it as the reader’s question → then as the promise you’ll deliver.

Example:

Idea: “Circularity is the next big thing for the clothing industry, not fast fashion”
Reader’s question: “How does recycling clothes work and is it worth it?”
Promise: “This is what happens to your clothes after you’re done wearing them”

If your hook can’t pass through that funnel, you’re still writing from your head, not their world view.

3) Packaging is half the work

(different audience → different packaging)

When your post or video get’s shown in the feed, assume you have 2-3 seconds to win that click. The packaging you made is how the audience spends those seconds.

If it connects → they click or watch more.
If it doesn’t resonate → they scroll ahead and you missed your moment.

It’s your job to choose a title/first-slide/thumbnail format with purpose:

Is your post answering a question they might have?
Are you showing them how to do something?
Do you want to help them with making a decision?
Or rather offer a perspective shift?

When you do this right, the framing of the idea will inform the packaging you make, which in turn will inform the audience if the post or video is for them.

But again, time for the caveats:

The same idea hits differently depending on where and how it’s consumed. You might need to adapt the same idea to a different execution for a different platform.

Why? Because you might want to reach a different audience, or your audience might behave a different way on each platform.

On TikTok and Instagram, people scroll a lot and only start watching when it’s entertaining or hits a specific topic of interest.
On LinkedIn, the context is professional and so people are looking for ‘what’s in it for them’.
In a newsletter, people signed up for you. Here attention is deeper and you can slow down. At least, if the subject line and first three sentences provide a clear promise to your reader.

What you’re doing is respecting the context of why people are on a specific platform. Basically, you’re redesigning the framing for each room they’re in.

A quick ethical rule: make the strongest, truest promise you can keep in the first 20% of the piece, then overdeliver.

4) Design for retention

(scroll → click → watch → watch more → binge)

The click is only the first micro win you can get. That’s when your packaging was interesting enough for your audience to say: “okay, let’s see what this is about”. What comes next, is how you keep them with you, for as long as possible.

Let’s take a youtube video as an example:

Your audience starts by scrolling through youtube. At a certain point the first thing they notice is your thumbnail. Because they’re intrigued, they will also check the title. When that combo creates enough curiosity, they will click and the video starts playing.
Now they will use your hook to gauge if the video will actually deliver what you promised in the title & thumbnail. If not? That’s what we call clickbait. You now have 30-60 seconds to show your audience that watching the video is worth it… and they shouldn’t click away to another one.
That worked? Cool! Now you’ll have to keep working on engagement. The audience can easily skip with 10 seconds by pressing the right arrow key. So every sentence you speak in the video should matter, no filler words. A great rule for strong retention: every 10 seconds should inform the next 10 seconds. If you fail at that, there are about 20 other videos waiting to be clicked on.
Great, the audience watched the entire video. Can you also get them to create a binge and watch more than one video of yours? If you do that, the algorithm takes notice and will start automatically showing your videos to similar audiences.

When you read it like that, it might look like retention is just tricking the audience. But I definitely don’t see it that way. To me it’s respecting their attention with momentum and structure. The easier you can make it for your audience to identify with your content, the less time they waste and the more you connect.

During the sessions we saw that when we finally got clear on the audience who was watching, all these steps got much easier to follow through on.

Would this persona care about this hook? No? → Back to the drawing board!

5) Make the next step obvious

(I watched → Now what do I do?)

Every strong piece ends with an obvious next step. Can you decide the one action you want the audience to take after going through your post?

Now, not every step needs to be a sale. You’ll have to match the CTA (call to action) to how ready the audience is to follow up on it. For example: a first time viewer of your 10 minute video won’t buy your book straight away (usually).

So what are some things can you ask for?

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…

The key thing here: one post, one ask. Anything more splits attention and kills follow through from your audience. And that was one of the things we saw pop up in our sessions too.

Make the path short and very low friction. If someone has to hunt for the link or decode what you want, they won’t do it. And again, think if the ask is reasonable for the content you just provided.

The data loop

This is where everything comes together. You take what you learned on the audience side and let the result tell you what to fix next. From here you can apply that in your next posts as a focused experiment.

Sometimes that result is a clean win. Often it’s a clarifying “no.” Either way, this keeps you from chasing ‘vibes’ or algorithms, but rather let’s you run a simple loop that turns educated guesses into real feedback.

Again, this can be a whole article by itself, so I’ll make it short for now. Here are a few things we learned when we went through the data in our coaching sessions:

Stop promoting direct links, but adapt to the platform.
When you post links from your main content (for example a podcast or youtube video) to another platform (let’s say LinkedIn) the algorithm usually punishes your reach because it wants to keep users on-platform.

Instead, look at how you can use the ideas from the main content piece and transform it into a new native post for the other platform you’re posting on. For example: your podcast on nuclear fusion can become a though-leadership piece on LinkedIn.

Retention spikes show you what to repurpose.
When you have access to a retention curve (for example on Youtube), you can see how well each part of the video is doing.

If there are any spikes along the way, it means that part is being watched more than others. Check if it has to do with the topic (and it’s not just people skipping ahead). If it is extra interesting for you audience → Turn it into clips for other platforms.

If a topic keeps showing more reach, double down.
This works well with the pillars and series we discussed earlier. When you notice one topic is getting more reach and impressions, it usually is a signal that:
- The platform is showing this to more people
- More people are engaging with this topic
- The topic could be trending at the moment.
This is a great moment to turn it into a series (if you hadn’t already) and make more content on the same topic. It could be the moment your channel pops!

Your content fit diagnostic

To finish this article off, here is a quick scan I use during the sprints to find the weak links and fix them fast. Go over each line and take note if it applies to one of the topics mentioned above. If it does, think about the smallest action you can take to get you more in line with content fit.

🧠 You, the creator
→ What holds you back: time, perfectionism, resources?
→ What do you stand for? (your voice)
→ What’s sustainable for you? (cadence)
→ What are your personal barriers vs. communication strengths?
⚙️ Your content system
→ What topics and pillars anchor your message?
→ Do your posts reflect your research or values?
→ Is your visual system recognizable and consistent?
→ Are you showing up often enough to be remembered?
🥰 Your audience
→ Who is actually watching?
→ What platform are they on? Why?
→ What language, tone or structure earns their trust?
🤳 The way you post
→ Is your hook clear?
→ Can you keep their attention?
→ Is your promise aligned with their needs?
→ Are you delivering something that sticks?
📊 The data
→ What’s working? What’s not?
→ Where’s are you losing people?
→ Are you adapting your strategy, or guessing?

Need help?

I’m opening the next 4 week coaching sprint (Beta) soon. We’ll work on strengthening your content fit on a 1-on-1 basis.

What’s in it for you:
✅ Weekly calls (2hr each), 4 weeks total
✅ If useful, free access to the workbook & resources
✅ Action plan for the coming week
✅ Recordings of our sessions
✅ WhatsApp or voice note support
✅ The biggest discount I can give

What’s in it for me:
✅ Feedback on depth
✅ Feedback on session structure
✅ A feel for recurring issues to focus on in the core program

I can only take on a small number of beta students next round, so please sign up on the waitlist if you’re interested. First come, first served :)