Spread Your Research and Open Source Projects Like Operating a Product

October 31, 2025 (1d ago)

If you don't communicate your research, it might as well not exist.
-- Alan Alda

From graduating with a Ph.D. to building products, I've increasingly realized: Sufficient promotion and exposure are crucial for making your research and open source projects truly 'exist'.
If no one knows about our work, it might as well not exist.

WHY: Why Promotion Matters

When I was just starting in academia and open source as an introverted person, I also hesitated, worried, and even resisted "promoting myself."
I asked myself—would this be too showy? Too opportunistic? Too early?
But later I found that this is actually a second language that everyone who seriously does research and builds products must master.

Below are the typical psychological barriers and thought processes I experienced.

Q1. "Is my work too small? Would anyone be interested?"

No. The progress of science and open source communities is built on countless seemingly small contributions.
Even a subtle improvement, a new dataset, or an optimization trick might be exactly what someone else needs.

The content you share might not have a large audience right now, but in the long-term memory of the internet, it will be found by those who need it at the right time.
Your sharing lights up a node in others' knowledge graphs.

Q2. "My work might have errors. Will I be attacked if I share it publicly?"

No research is perfect from the start.
The process of public sharing is itself a crowdsourced peer review—letting others help you find issues and suggest improvements.

If someone maliciously attacks you, they're probably not worth your time.
Most peer reviews are subjective. Some work reported by media platforms like QbitAI might not even meet my own standards, but they gain more attention and subsequent citations.

Q3. "My work is good enough. It should naturally be discovered, right?"

Not necessarily.
No matter how good the research or how polished the product, it still needs cold-start traffic.
You must tell the world it exists, then the world can respond.

Promotion isn't self-promotion, but a responsibility—
Making good ideas visible is a researcher's contribution to the public knowledge base.

HOW: How to Promote

Actually, promoting your work isn't as hard as you think.

The simplest starting point is:
Post a status on WeChat, Xiaohongshu, or X (formerly Twitter),
introducing your recent paper, project, or repository.
That's the first step of cold-start.

But if you want to operate this more systematically and product-like,
you can design a complete dissemination path like operating a product.
I categorize them into five types of communication channels and four types of media formats.

Promotion Matrix

1. Media Domain: Build Your "Content Origin"

Your long-form article (or long video) is the "atomic material" for all promotion.
It should introduce your work in a more accessible, story-like way so non-expert audiences can understand and relay it.

This long-form article can be in Chinese first, then you can:

  • Use AI to translate it into English, creating an English version;
  • Use AI to rewrite it into different platform formats (WeChat Moments, Weibo, Xiaohongshu, etc.);
  • Academic scenarios: Create Slides, Posters;
  • Promotion scenarios: Record a short explanatory video;
  • Open source scenarios: Optimize README, add DEMO or Live Preview.

These form your "core content asset library,"
which can be repeatedly referenced, reorganized, and reused.

2. Public Domain: Let Algorithms and Search Engines Spread Your Work

This is where you let more strangers discover your work.
Algorithm recommendations and search indexing are the "multipliers" for your content.

  • Zhihu: Many academics use Zhihu for academic exchange. Your long-form article can be seen by more people. When publishing, remember to sync-post to a related question to increase exposure.
  • Juejin/CSDN and other tech communities: Write a technical article introducing your Github project, helping interested developers understand your work.
  • Medium: One of the most commonly used long-form platforms for English content. You can publish your English long-form article here.

At the same time, you can share links from the above articles or your homepage to short-form/image platforms:

  • Xiaohongshu: More and more tech professionals are sharing their work on Xiaohongshu. You can create a short post, and Xiaohongshu can auto-format it as an image.
  • Weibo: If your work can generate widespread discussion among the general public, consider posting on Weibo.
  • X: English Twitter, but with a much stronger discussion atmosphere among tech professionals. Most recommended platform for English promotion.
  • LinkedIn: English professional networking platform. Your work can be seen by more professionals while increasing your professional influence.

Of course, there are other English platforms like Instagram, Threads, etc., though they may lack serious discussion atmosphere. If you've created videos, consider posting on video platforms.

3. Paid Domain: When Your Research Deserves Coverage

In product promotion, "paid exposure" is a lever.
While academic and open source projects aren't commercial products, their public value often allows you to get free exposure.

You can:

  • Submit to media outlets (like QbitAI, Machine Heart); once public domain heat is high enough, they may be willing to cover it for free.
  • Collaborate with KOLs/KOCs (like domain experts on Twitter, @karpathy, @arankomatsuzaki, @op7418, etc.): Find active creators in your field and invite them to cover your work.
  • Apply for Invited Talks or lecture videos: Techbeat, Bilibili academic channels, YouTube Tech Talks are common channels.

4. Community Domain: Participate in Discussions, Gain Cold-Start Traffic

With the above promotion, you've already made your work known to enough people.
But if you want even more people to understand your work, consider joining some communities, participating in discussions, answering questions, and sharing experiences.
In my definition here, communities are also public domains, but they primarily gain exposure through topics, Q&A, and aggregation rather than recommendations and search.
The main difference is that in communities, there's a baseline number of people who will see your responses, which is very helpful for cold-start.

For long-form content:

  • Zhihu: Zhihu also has community properties.
  • Reddit: In English communities, finding the right Reddit subreddit to post is a great way to spark community discussion. You can register a Reddit account in advance, participate in interactions to gain some Karma, enabling you to post later.

For short-form content, the key is finding corresponding vertical communities, such as:

5. Private Domain: Long-term Management of Your "Personal Brand Flywheel"

As your promotion system gradually takes shape,
you should start managing "your own media"—letting others actively find you.

In Chinese contexts, you can set up a WeChat Official Account, or share your work in WeChat Moments.
In English contexts, you can choose Newsletter services like Substack, or build your own website, letting more people notice your voice. This makes your subsequent promotion more efficient.

Conclusion

Promotion is not an add-on, but part of the research and development lifecycle. Making good ideas visible to more people is where knowledge flow begins.