Two months ago, my Facebook page had a small, quiet following. Today, more than 40,000 people follow it. I did not expect this to happen so fast, and I do not believe there is a secret trick behind it. But I do understand why it happened, and I want to explain it honestly, because the reason is actually more useful than a trick would be.
What I Actually Post
My page is called PlotLab. I use it to turn mathematics into animation, using a Python library called Manim, the same one that powers the diagrams in my other posts here. A definition that feels dry on a whiteboard becomes something a student can actually watch happen. A limit is not just a symbol anymore. You see a point moving closer and closer, step by step, until the idea makes sense on its own.
This is not a new idea. Channels like 3Blue1Brown made this style popular for a general audience. What I do is narrower and, I think, more practical: I build these animations for the exact topics that undergraduate and school-level students struggle with the most, the ones I see them struggle with in my own classroom, every single semester.
Why It Actually Worked
Here is the part I think matters most. I do not build an animation and then hope it is useful. I teach first, in a real classroom, with real students in front of me. When I notice the same confusion coming up again and again, on the same topic, I build the animation for that exact topic. Only after that does it go on Facebook or Instagram.
So the content was never designed for social media first. It was designed for my own students first, and social media is simply where it happens to travel well too. I believe this order matters. It means every animation already solved a real confusion for a real student before a single stranger on the internet ever saw it.
What People Actually Tell Me
The most encouraging part of the last two months has not been the follower count. It has been the messages. Almost every day, someone writes to me in the comments or in my inbox to say that a concept they had struggled with for a long time finally made sense after watching one of these animations. Some are students preparing for exams. Some are people revisiting mathematics years after leaving school, just out of curiosity. The message is almost always some version of the same thing: this is the first time this idea actually made sense.
That kind of feedback is why I keep making these, far more than the follower count itself.
Where to Find These Animations
The main page is on Facebook, where the 40,000+ follower community lives. The same animations are also on Instagram, which has grown to 15,000+ followers of its own.
Two Things I Built Because of This
Once people started asking for more than just short videos, I built two things to answer that.
The first is for people who want to learn to build animations like these themselves. I wrote everything I know about getting started with Manim into a single guide, from installing it correctly to the mistakes that waste the most time when you're new to it. It's called the Manim CE Beginner's Handbook, and it's written the same way I'd explain it to a student sitting next to me, not the way the official documentation explains it.
The second is for students specifically preparing for IGCSE, O-Level, and GCSE exams. I built a complete set of notes covering the full syllabus, where every topic that's genuinely hard to picture from text alone is paired with a scannable code linking straight to the matching Manim animation. Alongside the theory, each topic includes worked examples, exam tips, the mistakes students make most often, and practice problems with a formula sheet for quick revision before an exam. You can find the full set on my Gumroad page.
The Result I Did Not Expect
The most useful outcome of the last two months was not on Facebook at all. Researchers preparing for conference presentations started reaching out, asking if I could build an animation to explain a concept from their own research, the kind of concept that is genuinely hard to present clearly in a short talk using only slides and text. I said yes, and it turned into something I now offer properly: custom Manim-built explainers for research talks, thesis defenses, conference presentations, or coursework, built in the same style as PlotLab, with a fast turnaround.
If that sounds like something you need, whether it's a concept from your own research, a topic for your students, or anything else where an idea needs to be seen and not just read, you can see how this works and reach out on my Work With Me page.
What I Take From This
I did not grow this page by studying growth tactics. I grew it by solving a real problem for real students first, and only sharing the result afterward. If there is a lesson in that for anyone building an audience around their own work, I think it's this one: build for the person in front of you first. The audience online tends to follow, not the other way around.
I lead the Mathematics Department at my college, and PlotLab is where I turn what I teach into animation. If you'd like to see more of the work, follow along on Facebook (40,000+ followers) or Instagram (15,000+ followers). If you're a researcher, teacher, or student who needs something explained visually, reach out through my Work With Me page. I'd like to hear from you, drop a comment.
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