Virality Is Science with Steve Spangler

In This Episode

• [02:19] – Stephan introduces Steve Spangler, recognized as America’s science teacher by Ellen DeGeneres, as they explore how Steve transformed simple science experiments into viral sensations and his profound influence on STEM education
• [07:18] – How an SEO audit from Netconcepts transformed Steve’s online presence and business success.
• [19:27] – A focus on prioritizing value over requests in marketing, along with the success of the Mentos partnership.
• [26:45] – The use of Diet Coke and Mentos experiment in engaging students and teaching scientific methods.
• [34:21] – Steve reveals insights into the “screaming balloons” experiment conducted with NASA.
• [43:29] – Steve discusses the evolution of engagement strategies on YouTube and TikTok, highlighting the need for shorter content to accommodate shorter attention spans.
• [46:36] – Details about Steve’s nationally syndicated TV show, “DIY Sci,” including its availability and reach on various platforms.
• [48:47] – Stephan and Steve reminisce about the Guinness World Record with the Colorado Rockies, where 10,000 people simultaneously performed the same science experiment.
• [50:48] – Steve talks about his previous e-commerce business stevespanglerscience.com, explaining how he enjoyed the experimental aspects while his wife Renee managed operations until its sale in 2018.

Jump to Links and Resources

It’s great to have you back on the show after all these years.

Thanks to you, Stephan. You’re so fun to say that. Look at that while you were messing around. When was it? The very first time, I was lighting stuff on fire. We were speaking at conferences together, and for those people who were just listening, the book caught on fire. But my wallet catches on fire as well, and whatever else, and Stephan would just sit there and just allow the show to play out or whatever.

And he’d go, “Are you done?” So, we can talk about the real world of Internet marketing or content marketing. I’m busy messing around. Stephan, before we get started, can I just show you this? There are problems along the way. So I decided that I didn’t want to have the Starbucks cup sitting out on the thing because they didn’t pay for any of that. So I just put it in a good cup like this. But then I thought if you add a little sugar and some milk to that and you don’t have a spoon, see, these are our DIY-size studios. So, Carly, if you show them what our studio looks like here.

Yeah. See, this is our DIY-sized studio. It’s a house where we shoot our TV show. So there’s no real furniture in there. It just kind of looks like this. When I get a spoon, I just find lighters, matches, tweezers, and stuff. So, you have to find a way to stir your coffee in the morning. No problem.

Look at this. You just get yourself a board. So you see the board that’s here, and you put some holes in the board here on three. And if you just kind of look at that. There you go. That’s sitting right there like that. Perfect job. So now watch what happens.

So now you just put the coffee mug here, Stephan, like this. And now, see, isn’t this good? This is a perfect way to do it. There’s no way anything could go wrong here, Stephan. And you just spin back and forth and back. And Isaac Newton would be so proud. An object in motion stays in motion until a force acts upon it. Watch this, Stephan. When we go like this, you could also do a TED Lasso.

That’s one of my favorite ones. And then the crowd goes wild. Look at that. It’s just the perfect way to do it in the morning. Do you understand, Stephan, why you dropped me as a client years ago? You’re just like this guy. Just never gets serious about anything. All right. Cheers to you, Stephan. I promise I won’t interrupt you anymore. I promise.

Oh, that is awesome. You’re classic. And there’s a reason why you are awarded a hall of fame position in the National Speakers Association.

That, in a dime, won’t buy you a cup of coffee. I’m telling you, Stephan, it’s just. But is it one of those things where you all get together as speakers? Can you imagine 2500 speakers all stuck in the same hotel? You can’t get a word edgewise. And then they have a thing called the Hall of Fame. I don’t know what that means, but they put you in it, and you get to put it on your bio. And people are like, “We don’t even get that.” But. So you’re very nice, Stephan.

You’re very, very, very nice. Hey, do we get to talk about how we first met and that whole process or tell me where we will go with this? Because you are great about just going. It’s free-flowing. So. But we want to make sure it’s beneficial for the listeners as well. I think there’s also a little lesson to be learned there. So you tee it up, and we’ll talk.

Oh, they’re going to learn so much in this episode. I mean, how you’ve gone viral so many times and created a sustainable virality on not just YouTube but also on TV. And how you’ve gotten all these awards and free PR, created movements, and got the Diet Coke Mentos experiment that changed the world. Right? And so many things that you’ve done. It’s quite impressive. And you’re gonna spill some of your secrets.

That changed my world for sure. Can I bring viewers up to speed? So here’s what happened. It was 2003. We had a small e-commerce website. The company was fairly small—let me say that—maybe 15 employees, maybe a few fewer. We were selling science products, so we had little kits that we were selling. What’s an example? I don’t know if I have an example.

Hey, Carly, would you grab one of those behind me all around? Oh, there you go on our tippy toes. Yeah, that’s perfect. Yeah, yeah. Oh, that’s perfect. Take a look at this. I’ll let you go switch cameras and kind of play Carly’s behind-the-scenes playing.

You mentioned the other companies. There are product companies. We made toys and had these little labs where you could make slime or whatever it might be. Or here’s how to make a real mess in the kitchen. You know how it goes with all that kind of stuff.

Instant. No, that was one of my favorites.

So you remember how all of them played along the way. We learned that with an e-commerce platform, we could sell stuff directly to consumers and be amazing toys. That was a wholesale company, so we sold to bigger companies, like Target, Walmart, Hobby Lobby, Discovery at the time, and all the others there. However, we learned that we could do it otherwise with the e-commerce platform. But that was in 2003, so remember that 2003 is pre-YouTube because that was 2006. YouTube was only about three months old when the Mentos thing hit.

So this is before any of that. We found Stephan because his company, Netconcepts, was performing an audit. Right? And so you would audit somebody’s website. Man, that was more money than I could ever imagine. And so it was like, “Well, yeah, I think we should probably do it, whatever.”

And so, I don’t know, it was six or seven thousand dollars at the time. And you performed this audit with your team and came back. I kid you not. I was on the road looking at this from an airplane, and I was just. Every page is like, “Oh.” And the person next to me on the plane’s like, “Are you okay?” And I go, “No, we just spent $7,000, and there’s a hundred pages of things that we need to do.” But what he did with that audit was really build the blueprint for what had to happen. And we didn’t know what to do after that point because we couldn’t afford to do that.

We had no idea what a web development company was. This was all Wild West stuff. I remember saying thank you to him and sending him an email. I got this crazy email back from him going. He said to me, “How big is your company?” And I said, “Well, probably about 1500 square feet. Well, maybe.” And he goes, “No, no, no. Financially, how big is your company?” I went, “I’m very uncomfortable telling you.”

And he goes, “Listen, your company’s not big enough to afford what our team can do for you. And we know that, but we had a discussion. And you’re just weird enough that if we took you on as a client and made it possible for you to afford what you can, the trade-off would be you have to do what I tell you to do. So if I tell you to do something, you’ve got to do it because it will be kind of an experiment.” And Stephan granted me that amazing gift that I will never, ever, ever forget. And I will always try to pay forward to somebody else in the future because we couldn’t do that. But without him, I wouldn’t be standing here today doing what I’m doing. Sold that company after 25 years.

Stevespanglerscience.com and the amazing toys were sold. All of that was thanks early on to those early years with Stephan Spencer. It’s hard to believe that it was a little over 20 years ago.

Yeah. And how many years have we worked together? Seven.

It was a long time—until you kicked me out. Yeah, and so we fly to Wisconsin and see each other occasionally.

Your team was great. After I sold my agency, you had to go with the acquirer because that was part of the deal.

So, you know, you talk, you taught me so much. And let me give you an example. So here’s one of the things that I learned in 2000. So we got this platform up, and we’re selling some products here. He’s teaching me how important it is to have a good title and a description. And it seems so simple today. But isn’t it true when you take a look at Amazon? It doesn’t just say iPhone case; it says iPhone 16 Pro, Max, Supcase, iMag. It’s all in this title.

Why? Because it searches so well, as well as the description and whatever else. And he said, “I know that you’re doing all that, Steve, and it’s called content marketing, but I think I want you to put your experiments on the website. We’re going to create an area for you to give away your experiments.” I said, “Well, don’t you sell those?” And he goes, “No, no, no, you’re going to give those away because we’re going to drive traffic to your website because those experiments will do that.” He was teaching me content marketing long before the Michael Stelzners of the world or the social media marketing people were ever teaching content marketing. He was teaching me very early on, and then he said, “Well, you have to blog.” And I didn’t even know what the four letters meant. I don’t even know what a blog is.

And he goes, don’t even worry about it, but you’ll do this. I’m going to help you through the process. And those things, those that seem simple today, were such a big deal. But he guided me through the process and said, “Watch what happens if you do it.” And I did it, Stephan. And lo and behold, the traffic just kind of blew up. And this is long before doing the Ellen Show or doing the other stuff. I was watching TV, but nothing in comparison.

What was that website, Stephan? Boingboing.net, something like that. It took down the site. I remember calling you guys and going, “Hello, the site doesn’t work.” And you’re like, “Yeah, you took down the site.” By the post on Insta-Snow®, we’d created this chemical that you add water, and it fluffs up into the snow. And Insta Snow took down our site because so many people are asking, what’s this Insta Snow stuff? So these are good problems to have, right, Stephan?

Yeah, definitely. Quality problems. Now, you make me sound like a dictator. Like I just told you, jump, and you say, how high? You’re very cooperative.

Absolutely. But that was the relationship, Stephan, and that’s it. You are the leader when you have a leader and have established your business roles. By no means am I stepping in here going, “You know what, Stephan? I think it would be better if I did this online.” So, I truly assume the role of follower. I think that’s so important as a lesson down the road. I mean, I’ve been in this business for 34 years now, and I see a number of people who are in that CEO role who feel like they always have to be the leader. I think what you taught me was that you have to be able to follow.

I had to trust you. And you took me down the road, and I can’t think of a decision you asked me to make, or something you asked me to do that didn’t pan out. Some were better than others, but it was a long-term process. We didn’t see immediate results. Blogging, I didn’t see results until a week later. But we had to have a catalog of content there. I think the takeaway lesson is okay to follow. You have to find a person to follow.

Give away memorable and educational experiences freely; the trust and goodwill you build are invaluable. Share on X

Yeah, we were really happy with the results we were getting for you. But you had to build such an incredible catalog of great science experiments and resources for educators and parents that it was worthy of ranking number one for science experiments and for all these other keywords for which we got you top rankings. You deserved it. You were head and shoulders above all your competition, in my opinion.

Well, now there’s a ton of people doing it. So, I remember how happy you were that we ranked for easy science experiments. You go, that’s something to rank for today. Stevespanglerscience.com Again, that entity was sold off. It’s funny when somebody buys the company, they have different plans or whatever else, and that’s fine. They’re doing their thing with it. But stevespangler.com, I don’t sell science experiments anymore, so I shouldn’t rank for easy science experiments anymore.

But what I really want to rank for is STEM engagement or conference. I want people from around the world to come to my STEM conference. Science, Technology, Engineering, Math. And so while we don’t have the same momentum we had in years past because there are just so many people doing it, we were a big fish in a small pond in 2004, and now we’re just the tiniest drop of water in the ocean. But you still carve out your niche, and it does what we need to do for our businesses. 

So, the strategies and best, or as you said, better practices that you taught me, to this day, I continue to use them. These are just the gold standard. No matter how much technology changes, the strategies that you taught me have never changed.

Oh, well, thank you. I appreciate you so much. And speaking of gold, you got a Gold Play Button Award from YouTube. So what does that mean?

Oh, you mean that old thing over there?

Yeah, yeah, it happens to be in the background there. Yes.

Yeah, that’s just here if you go wide. Carly, take a look. Yeah, there’s a little YouTube award. You get it for this, the million or whatever it is. So you get a million subscribers. And so there’s your Gold Play award, kind of like that. And so here’s the craziest. Oh, there you go.

It’s kind of hard to see. They give you a small one for a Silver Play and a bigger one for a Gold Play. Here’s what’s funny, Stephan. Thirty thousand creators in the world have that Gold Play award. So, 30,000 people out there have 1 million subscribers. That’s a big number. But you figure in the overall scope of the world or whatever it is. So there is a little niche there. And YouTube’s smart. They do that kind of thing for you.

Now, you don’t get another one at 2 million, or I think the next one is 10 million, and then the next one is 50 million from there, and then your God status at a hundred million or whatever, the huge thing is. But back in the day, Stephan, when we started with YouTube, I posted the first Mentos and Diet Coke video, and for those viewers who don’t know, that’s where you take the little Mentos. You drop them into a bottle of Diet Coke, and all of that carbonation comes out because of these nucleation points that are on the Mentos. All that carbon dioxide is released, and it shoots up into the air. Our claim to fame was doing that on live television.

And Denver. The NBC affiliate is out of Denver. And the news anchor gets drenched on live TV three times in a three-and-a-half-minute segment. She looked like a drowned rat. That title was there when the Associated Press picked up the blog post that Stephan taught me to write: News anchor. Oh, the experiment goes awry. The news anchor gets soaked or something like that.

That’s what got picked up. And it went everywhere. I contacted our little friends, Perfetti Van Melle, to tell them that I had come up with this thing to do with their Mentos, but they couldn’t care less. Well, that all changed in September of 2006 when that little video went viral. And for YouTube purposes, viral meant 10,000 views in a day. If you did 10,000 views in a day. Right, Steph? And that was viral. Today, it’s per second or whatever.

But we got their attention. Our content marketing on air and on this little website that was only three months old called YouTube got the attention of professional people who said, “I guess you should probably come down and see us.” And so I did, thinking that I was going to get sued. So I did something. I guess I tarnished their brand or something like that. So I went down by myself. Didn’t take counsel, didn’t take my wife, didn’t take Carly, didn’t take anybody. I just sat in this room, and all of a sudden, these suits came in, and they said, “So we saw your video.”

And they went, “Yep.” And they said, “So you have our attention. Got it. What do you want?” I said, “What do you mean, what do you want?” At that moment, thank goodness there’s a little angel on your shoulder that whispers, probably Stephan. It was just whispering into my ear. I just said, “I’ve invented this Geyser tube toy. This is what it looks like now. It’s this little tube that drops the Mentos into the Diet Coke.”

It’s not about asking for something in return, but about genuinely offering value. Share on X

But I just said I invented this thing. “We’ve filed for the patent, and we’re going to create a toy. I’d like to have permission to take your Mentos, your roll of Mentos, and put it with the toy and put it in a store like Target. And because the toy industry is so horrible and there are so many bad people in there that will steal ideas, I’d like to have all North American distribution rights on all Mentos that you sell that are not related to just eating them like, for education purposes”. Yeah, I just made up a new category. And you could see the guys go,” hmm.” And they looked at each other and went, “Okay, well, that’s a possibility.”

What else do you want? They’re waiting for me to ask for a million dollars. I said, “I’d like 100,000 rolls of Mentos.” And the guy pushed back. He goes, “What are you going to do with 100,000 rolls of Mentos?” And I said, “Well, I’m going to give them to 100,000 teachers because I found out that they fit in this perfect little test tube.” And I said, “And if I give it to a hundred thousand teachers, they’re all going to do it in the classroom. And this will become this generation’s new vinegar and baking soda experiment. So, no more volcanoes. This will be the Mentos and Diet Coke thing.”

And they said, “We could do that. Anything else you want?” And I go,” No, I don’t think so.” I wasn’t even smart enough to go; “Could I have some money?” Because I didn’t want that. I figured I’d earn the money on the backside. But I didn’t ask them. In retrospect, that’s why they said “yes” and sent over the agreement. Who am I, as a teacher in Denver, Colorado, to have a marketing agreement with Perfetti Van Melle, a billion-dollar brand with all of their candies? And that’s how the whole thing went down. But it’s all because of that content marketing.

We had to get their attention, and we had to find a strange way to do it.

Yeah, amazing. It’s good you listened to that little angel on your shoulder.

Thank you, Stephan. The only thing that you can go on is, is this the right thing to do? Right? You had taught me, leading up to that, that you give more than you ask. So, every time you want something, make sure you give 10 times the amount that you asked for. So we did that with our marketing. We would give experiment after experiment.

I mean, I’ve got 10 emails that go out to people with, here’s a new experiment. Try this. Whip the tablecloth off; it’s Thanksgiving, blah, blah, blah. And then they ask. By the way, if you were interested, we do have this little club called Spangler Science Club. That’s when we would ask them if they would like to subscribe or buy this kit. Or one of those things? But you give far more than you ask to build that rapport. And that respect. So it’s that relationship that I guess we’re building.

It’s not a give-back; it’s revealing light in the world.

Yeah, through all that giving, you created a lot of goodwill in the world. I don’t like the term “give back” because it presumes you’ve taken something without permission.

Oh, that makes sense.

In reality, you’re just revealing light in the world. You’re being a force for good.

You write that down. Sini is constantly learning from you. I like that. It’s not a give-back; it’s this. It’s that give-and-take. But it’s a relationship. You taught me early on. I’m not a business major; I’m a chemistry major.

I don’t have an MBA or something. So you learn this stuff along the way. But how important, just these life lessons, how important is far more important to give than it is to receive. Or with that adage, it says give without remembering, receive without forgetting, that kind of thing. And it’s kind of that principle that’s there that you constantly give away to this day. It’s kind of funny that you said something about the Ellen show. There were 15 years on Ellen Show and 27 appearances on Ellen Show.

Again, a Colorado science teacher is getting to pretend he’s a rock star or something on the Ellen show. Well, she made me feel like that. Right. And it’s so funny that each featured an average of five experiments out of all those segments. To this day, the new science people running the talk show circuit are copying the same segments. There are still Ellen shows producers with whom we’re in touch. I’ll get a note from them, “Well, did you see Kimmel or The View or The Talk or whatever it was? They did our same segment from October 2018 or whatever it was.”

And no kidding, if I used a red trash can, they used a red trash can. If I use this prop, they use that prop. The same lines. It just shows you how incestuous the TV business is. But it is so much easier to copy than it is to create. And I think one of the things I’ve had to learn over the years is to just let go because a younger Steve would have been like, “Let’s go get them and send them an email and be mad and whatever else.” And what’s that going to do? It’s going to do nothing. Right? So just give it away and just Go, all right.

And it just forces me to try to come up with some stuff. The hard part is when you get booked for a speaking engagement and other competitors in the marketplace are doing your material, the meeting planner’s like, “No, we’ve already seen that, that and that.” And you’re like, “Now I look like a hack doing my material,” telling my own stories, to do everything because everybody else has told the stories. It’s okay. It always pushes me to that uncomfortable place where you have to develop new content along the way. It’s good.

Information wants to be free.

Yeah. But I think having this philosophy of giving and not trying to make it a horse trade or whatever, just allowing the universe, the creator, to refill your cup, is a great way to be in the world. And I don’t know if you’ve heard this quote before. I probably shared it with you. It’s really old, and “information wants to be free.” Have I shared that with you before?

No. That’s great.

Yeah, it’s. I don’t know, at least 15 years old or something. Maybe 20 years old. That quote and its concept are pretty simple: if you think of creative work, let’s say it’s a book, something that you can make easily copyable and thus potentially viral, you make it completely free. You add, like, you know how Hotmail got started? The secret sauce was that little tagline at the bottom of each email. Get your free personal email at hotmail.com, which spreads virally in every email and network. Effect gone wild. And so if you just facilitate that, if, first of all, you have the intention. 

I want this to go viral, be free, and change the world. I don’t need to monetize every single view or email address. I just want to reveal light, and magic will happen.

Yeah. Thank you for that. Because the latest struggle with me for, like you say, this monetization, it seems like everybody is monetizing everything. And it’s interesting to be around other creators and other people. Like, you are going with all those views. You must have done very well; you bought a couple of homes and everything. And you’re like, no. There’s this little secret with YouTube and many of these platforms: if you produce content for kids, you’re not allowed to monetize it.

You don’t make money on TV. You make money because you are on TV.

So we don’t get money per click, view, or whatever else they deem. What I do is only for kids. Now, I’ll contend that if you go to our YouTube channel, if you go to the YouTube channel that there are three of them, but one of them is called. It’s easy to remember Sick Science. Because kids would go, “That’s sick.” See, in that description, it’s already like, “Well, what does that mean? It must be for kids.” Well, it’s not. If you look at the demographics, we have a ton of adults who come, and they’re looking for stuff.

They’re looking for content. It’s just kind of fun content. Our TV show that airs is not just for kids. It doesn’t show up in the same format as a kids’ show. It shows up at regular times. But where I’m going with it is that we don’t get that revenue that comes through. And you can’t be mad about that.

You just find another way to capitalize on that. Carly has been my manager for 20 years now. It reminds me that you don’t make money on TV. You make money because you are on TV.  As my agent and manager, that’s something that she can leverage when I’m booked for a keynote. Most of my time now, Stephan, is spent in professional development with educators or keynoting conferences, even speaking at business conferences about the science of engagement. Who would have thought that, again, a science teacher, through the lens of a science teacher, is talking about engagement principles just based on some things that we’ve learned along the way? So you’re right. Going full circle, you leverage those things you can’t control. 

So it’s easy to get pissed that YouTube’s like, you can’t monetize on that because you’re four kids. Some people did the bad thing a long time ago and put content out there that they shouldn’t have, but work around it, don’t try to change the world, and just make it happen, and it will all even out. I think you taught me that as well. It just, in the long run, it all evens out. So settle down.

Yeah, you’re working on some big projects now. You’re working on a book. You already have books out, but this one is coming out. I think Simon & Schuster is your publisher for this.

Work around it; don’t try to change the world.

Yeah, that’s the parent organization. Yeah, it’s Forefront Books. It’s funny. So, I was talking about the keynote thing. So when people come out, and they say, “So would you speak to thousand teachers in Chicago, greater Chicago area, whatever, or kickoff for the beginning of the school year?” Sometimes, teachers, especially educators in today’s day and age, just need a little shot in the arm. Or you say it is just a hug here that the education business is tough.

Sometimes they just need somebody to say, “Hey, it’s going to be okay.” Part of that is that teachers can smell a nonteacher a mile away. And so when you put a nonteacher sitting in front of a group of teachers, and they’re speaking these platitudes about their philosophy of education, it’s bullshit. People can tell that just immediately, right? So it’s kind of nice to have a teacher talk about that.Thank goodness I have enough years in the classroom and enough years in education that I have some things to talk about and at least share. And so there’s a keynote I’ve been traveling with for a long time: Best Day Ever.

And I’ve been thinking about another term called Another Best Day Ever, which that title in and of itself is like Another Best Day Ever. I thought the Best Day Ever was a finite kind of thing. And you go, no, Another Best Day Ever indicates there’s multiples. How do you have a multiple? In short, I’m talking about what happens when you connect and engage through a shared experience. And I think of them as three circles, like a Venn diagram. When you connect and engage through a shared experience, that intersection of those three circles is what I call the Best Day Ever. 

It’s that moment in time when a kid comes up to you and wraps his or her arms around you, looks you in the eyes and goes, “Today was the best day ever.” And you look at them like, “We did nothing. I did nothing. Today, kid. There is nothing.” And they’re like, “No, you let us use glue and glitter and Jerry the Hamster.” And you look over at poor Jerry, and he’s very pretty now because they’ve created their own Best Day Ever. I just put the things out there for something to happen. 

Metaphorically, it makes sense for us to know what we’re talking about, whether we’re talking about customers, employees, personal relationships, kids, or whatever it might be. And there’s no order to this, but when you connect through an experience, let’s just say that Mentos and Diet Coke, you take the kids outside, you buy them a couple of bottles of that Diet Coke and some Mentos, and you allow them to have that shared experience with you. They engage at a higher level. You watch them. The first thing a kid will say to you is like, “Do it again. We need more Soda. We need more Mentos.” And you say, as a teacher, “Well, if we did it again, what would you expect?” And they go, “It’ll go higher if I add more Mentos.” And immediately, organically. We are teaching the scientific method through their engagement, not mine.

So it’s not contrived. As a teacher, you just have to learn to step back and allow them to connect meaningfully. And that’s what we’re talking about in the book. We’re talking about the science of engagement. Still, we’re looking at some research because there’s not been a tremendous amount of research done on engagement other than the higher overarching, neuroscience kind of engagement. I want to talk about it on a very personal level. So, I know those three pillars are true. To connect, engage, and share experiences. We just don’t know what that looks like.

And, well, it’s my job in the next nine months to figure all that out and put it together. I get a chance to share many stories from teachers around the country and many business stories as well about what happens when people engage at a higher level. What did that look like from a profit center? What did it look like from customer experience? Long before we were ever using those terms, customer experience.

You leverage those things you can’t control.

Yeah. Well, as they say, “People don’t remember what you told them. People remember how you made them feel.”

Bingo.

Yeah, it’s very relevant.

Bingo.

Your book is going to be amazing.

We always said, “As a teacher, you win when it gets to the dinner table.” Right? And what does that mean? It means that if a kid at the dinner table is so excited about the experience that they participated in that day, they will share that. That’s very viral, right? When a parent is like, “Oh, my gosh, I couldn’t get a word edgewise last night because we. I didn’t even have an app to ask what you did in school today, Bob. What’d you do in school today, little Todd?” They just start talking. They just start giving the information because they can hardly wait to share. And what they’re sharing is their interpretation of that experience.

And they’re sharing, if you listen carefully, how they connect with the person who helped facilitate that engagement. So it’s a very interesting piece. And as I look at customer engagement and we take a look at super fans, for example, on our platforms, what does that really mean? I remember you telling me that term so many years ago, and I thought, Stephan, super fan. It seems very narcissistic, but you’re right. Some people engage very highly, and you have to ask yourself why. Why are those people always clicking, like on the latest Instagram you send out or trying to share your stuff on their platforms? What’s in it for them? I’m not paying them. They’re not an affiliate. They want to feel connected.

As a teacher, you have to learn to step back and allow them to connect meaningfully.

And how do you say thank you for that type of connection? What kind of experience can you build for them at the same time? So it’s a fascinating area. I think the people who have mastered it probably don’t know why they’ve mastered it, but I think there are some things that we can learn from those strategies and better practices that are out there.

Yeah, for sure. And when you create remarkable experiences like you do, and then you do them so well, it’s the sort of stuff that has remarkability. When I say that I’m using Seth Godin’s definition of remarkable, it’s worthy of remark, but you just come up with the most brilliant things that have that viral appeal just baked into it. So you’re planning an experiment on the International Space Station. Do you want to share a little bit about that?

Yeah, can I just comment on that remarkability kind of piece? I’ve never set out to make a viral video, and I don’t know that there are many of them that you can consider. I don’t even know what marketing people consider viral today. I hear the term thrown around all the time. And you hear somebody who’s like, “I just had a viral video.” And you take a look at it, it’s got about 400,000 views. And you go, “Yeah.” And it is for them in their world and in their little customer sphere, so to speak, that is a viral video. So, who decides what is viral? But all I can say is that I’ve ever set out to go, and this video is going to do well.

I always get burned. It never seems to pay off. It’s the ones that you don’t expect. Why are so many people interested in the world? And how you crush a can. I show you how to take a soda can and use air pressure to crush it. It’s an elementary experiment. You add a little bit of water to the can, stick to your stove, and water goes from a liquid to water vapor.

It pushes the air out of the can so it is filled with molecules that are far apart from each other. And then with tongs, if you take that can and turn it upside down, just seal it with a little layer of water, like in a bowl of water. Bam. It will crash in. Totally took off. I thought, well if that took off now, I’m going to do it with a bigger can. 

So I got a ditto fluid can, and that didn’t do as well. And then I got a 55-gallon drum. We’re going to go outside, and we’re just going to. And it didn’t do well at all, Stephan. What I found out was that as soon as I made the experiment so big that other people couldn’t recreate it, they didn’t want to watch or stay engaged. So that engagement with their ability to do something, I think they watch something going, “Oh, I could do that.” 

So, the simplest things that I do are the ones that seem to take off the most. Anytime there’s a brainstorming there, you gotta go get this weird thing, or whatever it is, then they don’t want to do it. So that brings us to the International Space Station because the materials that we’re gonna do with this experiment on the International Space Station with the rest of the world will be pretty cool.

But it has to be simple. And that’s the way that we had to sell it to him. So I’ll show you the experiment real quickly, and I’ll show you what you need. All right, so here are the supplies. If you take a look at this down here, I’ve got a balloon. Just a clear balloon and a penny. So that’s all you’re going to need: a clear balloon and a penny. If you want the next step, then I’ve got a hex nut as well. So you could use the hex nut as well. So here’s what happens.

 You can go to Party City or one of those places and find the clear balloon. So, the penny goes into the balloon-like this. So you see where it’s sitting there like this.And so now you blow it up. It’s unclear, but you can still see what’s going on inside and seal it up like this. And so now the challenge is I want to take that penny, get it to sit up on its edge, I want it to roll back and forth and eventually go around the balloon. Well, how I describe it is impossible. Here’s the secret. You take your hand, and you palm it like this. And so if I palm it like this and shake and then spin. Watch this.

Ready? Here it goes. There it is. Look at this. If you’re just listening, you don’t see what’s going on, but the penny is up on its edge, spinning around and around and around in the balloon. So it’s orbiting the inside of the balloon. Look at that. It just keeps going and going. It would be fascinating if I changed it to a dime, nickel, or quarter, but look at that. And so I’ve been doing this for, I don’t know, 15, 20 years.

And with teachers, I would often say, wouldn’t it be great when our first teacher astronaut is up on the International Space Station or at the time on the shuttle or whatever it was? What if she were to do this and beam that down to us live? And what if we were to do it at the same time? I wonder if we would experience our penny slowing down because of the effects of gravity. But would her penny just keep going, going and going? What would happen if we let go of the balloon? It just falls because of gravity. But because of that centripetal force, if she’s doing this as well and then she lets go, if she does this and then lets go, would that balloon in microgravity, right? Would it just move around in a certain pattern? If we had a top-down view, what would it look like?

So there were these questions about two and a half years ago, somebody came up to me after one of the full-day workshops, teacher workshop, and said, “So I wanted you to know I’m from NASA and the International Space Station National Labs, and I think we could do something like that if you’re really serious about it.” I was like, “Yeah, I’m serious.” And they said, “The problem is we gotta convince NASA to put balloons and pennies first of all. And I’ll show you the next part that hex nut up onto the space station; we gotta get a ride.” And I said, “for me?” And they go, “No, for your dumb supplies. We gotta get this ride for your supplies up to the space station.”

As soon as I made the experiment so big that other people couldn’t recreate it, they didn’t want to watch or stay engaged.

And then they said, “And tell me again why you would want that.” And I simply said, “Because it’s been well since President Kennedy looked into that camera and said we need scientists and engineers, and we’re going to the moon, and I need your help.” And there’s been nobody like that since then to look into that camera going; we need scientists and engineers. There’s this thing called STEM, and we’ve got these amazing changes happening in the world, but I need people focused on Science, Technology, Engineering, and sometimes STEAM, Art. and Math. And if you were to focus on that, an endless array of career options are available to you. So that’s ultimately what this is all about.

It’s less about centripetal force and more about millions and millions of people engaging in this experiment. NASA said, “Yes, but you know what got them was this. The penny in the balloon is great, but show us that thing you do with a hex nut.” So watch this. If you take a hex nut and you drop a hex nut into a balloon. So, a deflated balloon is for those people who are just listening. And now roll it up. Now, the hex nut, of course, is not perfectly round; it’s six-sided.

So now listen to this into the microphone. Listen. It’s the screaming balloon. Listen to that. It’s a parent’s nightmare because a kid will do this for hours and hours and hours. Your 5-year-old Stephan will just sit here and do so. NASA is like “Screaming balloons in space? That’s a pretty good title.” It is a great title. So that’s what’s going to happen. So I’m happy to tell you that on August 3rd of 2024, my balloons, hex nuts and pennies and NASA won’t even allow the astronauts to put their mouths on the balloon because they’re afraid if they blow it up with their mouths, and then they let go, will the penny floating in space shoot back into their law. I would hate to be the guy who takes out an astronaut. So they had to send up a hand pump. So that’s probably another $50,000 to send up a hand pump. But it’s all sitting up there, ready to go.

We think it’s going to take place in March. They thought maybe it would take place in December of 2024, just a few weeks away from taping this particular podcast. But it wasn’t going to happen with going up and getting the astronauts up there and everything else. And they wanted some time to be able to tell the world about this. So we think it’s going to happen in the first week of March. And so we’ll make sure that everybody knows. But my goal is to have millions of people on the planet doing this at the same time the astronaut in space is doing it to talk about the greatest engagement we could ever have with people saying, “I’m interested in figuring out because I’m curious, I’m curious as to what would happen. I don’t know.”

NASA doesn’t even know, and that’s why they’re not letting them blow it up. And we don’t know what it’s going to look like. Nobody’s ever done it before. It’s so simple. And I’m hoping that simplicity will make it so that people really engage. So, cross our fingers anyway.

Wow, that’s really cool. Is that one of the experiments, the hex nut and the balloon, that is on your DIY science channel?

Yeah, absolutely. So, from the social channels. Is that funny? That’s another thing. So, as these social channels are sitting out there, you go, well, here’s YouTube. But when we started with YouTube, it was like, “Well, we like that channel called Sick Science.” But you know what? We got a deal with Google and YouTube in 2010. We were offered to be a part of one of their experiments. And so it was called the Original content series or original creators. They took $100 million and found a hundred partners. Not everybody got the same amount of money, I’m telling you. And so I got a smaller amount of money, but we had enough to be able to create content for a year. So, we created a show called The Spangler Effect. The Spangler Effect was started in 2010 and renewed in 2012. And so we did two full seasons, so to speak.

And I think what we have, Carly, 30 episodes per season, something like that. And so, it was their experiment to see if they could produce long-form content. So my job for this was we don’t care. They didn’t care what content I created. The average person in the world at that time, 2010, consumed 2 minutes and 22 seconds of YouTube content per day. And they asked what it would be like if that turned into 20 minutes a day. How would that change the YouTube landscape? So they said, “We want to see how long you can keep people engaged.”

So they would look at that. Once 60% of your audience lost, they considered you disengaged. Okay. So we said we’d love to do this, hired the crew, wrote the things, and had a producer from the Ellen show helping us on the first couple of episodes. I lost 60% of my audience in the first 23 seconds. Why? Because I paid for this fancy opening. I had this crazy opening with graphics and this and that and everything.

And for some reason, people are like, “Yeah, I’ve seen that stuff before.” And then went on to something else. It wasn’t until by mistake, maybe the seventh episode in somewhere around there, that we just started it as a cold open going, “Hey, watch this. I got an egg in a bottle, and I can teach you how to make the egg go in the bottle. And then, bam, you just see it go into the bottle. Like magic. They stayed around, and then we opened the door. And so we just re-sequenced to be able to constantly focus on.

You could do this; you could do this. You just need an egg, this juice bottle, and a piece of paper, and you’re going to light it on fire. Blah, blah, blah. So the more accessible we made it. So after the two-year experiment with YouTube, with that original content creators deal, we held attention for about 18 and a half minutes to keep people for 18 and a half minutes before we lost 60% of our audience. Not bad. And so those engagement strategies we learned, I was immediately able to take back into the classroom and immediately be. I was able to teach teachers what that looked like as well. So it was interesting.

So what we learned was you got to divide up the channels, so we didn’t put everything under one channel today. I wish we had all of our subscribers under one channel because you would have more power and leverage. I’ve got three YouTube channels that you just throw in your show notes for people who want to see. But Sick Science is a YouTube channel, the Spangler Effect and then Spangler Science TV. These were all the TV things we were doing that we could put up on YouTube. And then, you know, things like TikTok come up or Instagram, Facebook, that kind of thing. Do you remember when you told me to get a Twitter account? I think we were in 2007, and you called me at my house and said, “Hey, it’s called Twitter; get an account.” And so my Twitter account was 13 million.

I thought, why are we doing this, Stephan? And now there are billions or whatever, and that whole landscape has changed. But that’s how cutting edge you were early on, being able to go,” Just do this; you gotta do this.” When TikTok approached us during COVID in 2020, it was in April of 2020. They’re like, we want you. Because I wasn’t on TikTok, and they said, “We want you to do on TikTok what you did on YouTube.” I said, “What does that mean?” They go, “Do your little experiments.” I said, “Yeah, but it’s only 59 seconds.”

Yeah. At that time, you couldn’t break the 59 seconds. 60 seconds, right. It was just. It was what it was. I said, “I don’t think I can teach anything in 60 seconds.” They go, “We think you can.” And so we did.

So, we created a series called Science Minute. So I got a minute, and I’m going to show you something in 60 seconds. And they said, “We’re not going to give you anything other than we’ll give you the handle.” Somebody was squatting on Stevespangler. It’s amazing how, in 20 minutes, they weren’t squatting on it anymore. I had @stevespangler. And so I went in with nothing. They said, “We’ll just verify you. That’s the only thing you get. We’re not going to promote it. We’re not going to do anything.” And so I remember putting up our very first video on TikTok. And one of the very first comments was probably from. I just envisioned some kid sitting in his mom’s basement going, “Who the hell is this guy? He’s got zero videos, views, likes, and verified; who the heck is that guy?” And in 30 days, we had a million subscribers. But again, it was the early days. Nobody did science on TikTok back then.

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It’s the same thing with YouTube; you know, nobody was doing science or hands & pans kind of science. And now you see it everywhere, but the shorter I can keep it, the more engagement I get. I was worried about that 60 seconds. Now I’m worried about 12 seconds because we have between 7 and 12 seconds to keep their attention before that thumb scroll moves up and goes to the next thing. I’m learning to engage their attention much more quickly and, hopefully, keep them there a little bit while trying to teach them a little something. You can see it with the YouTube channel and TikTok and whatever else. I’m @stevespangler everywhere. So take a look at it.

And so, our viewers who want to see what we’ve done with the content will see it over a period of time. So, really, it’s a body of work on how we’ve gone from a very long format to a very short format, and then we’ve dabbled once again with that long format and just saw what that sweet spot is. Whenever anybody tells you this is the secret, I think they’re lying to you because they don’t know. I think you have to be as fluid. That’s one of the things you taught me, Steph, that you just have to be superfluid in the way that you think and be ready to change on a dime.

Yeah. So what is DIY Sci, then, if that’s not one of your YouTube channels? It’s a TV series.

Yeah. So DIY Sci is the name of our TV show. So we have a nationally syndicated TV show that was created because of our show called the Spangler Effect. So when we had the Spangler effect on YouTube, we got approached. I’m represented by William Morris. And so our agent reached out to us and said, “Hey, there’s an idea for our show, and they want you to do it.” And so these back east producers are like, “We got this idea; we just don’t know how to do it.” And they didn’t call it DIY Sci.

They just wanted a science show. And I liked that name, DIY Sci. I thought that was cool. It kind of said do-it-yourself science. And this is do-it-yourself. It’s pennies and hex nuts and coffee cups and boards and whatever else, not fancy stuff. And so DIY Sci, we signed a deal for that nationally syndicated show. It appears on Fox and CW, and today, it’s streamed on Amazon.

So if you look for DIY Sci or Steve Spangler on Amazon, Carly, help me with what else? Hulu, Amazon, Pluto, Tubi, all those other ones. So, as the marketing people like to say, “It’s available in 90 million homes every week.” That doesn’t mean that 90 million people are watching it. My mom’s watching probably, and maybe a couple of people down the street, but we’re now in season seven. So again, it just makes you create this content and put it out there for the world to consume. And it’s fun. Today, as an older science teacher, I’m 57 and have been doing this for a long time.

It’s fun to have people who are so much younger go; I’ve been watching your videos for a long time. And you go, “How old are you? You’re very young.” Or see a teacher with all these teacher conferences. Just came back from a huge teacher conference in Texas. And to have these people go, “One of the reasons I’m in education today is I was watching you and so many others do these science experiments on YouTube when I was a kid.” So we put that content out there, and it lives. It’s a living, breathing kind of being that’s out there. And we forget the impact that it can have when you just let it sit out there.

You have no idea who it will resonate with because it may be somebody you don’t even expect.

So, have you set any Guinness World Records in all these wild experiments that you’ve done?

I got one. I’ve helped with dozens, but I’ve only got one to my name. We were doing a project here in Colorado with the Colorado Rockies. And the Colorado Rockies, if you’ve been to Colorado, we have this beautiful stadium called Coors Field where the Colorado Rockies play our Major League Baseball team. They approached me in 2007 or 2009, I think it was 2007, and said, “So we’d like to have a stem.” At the time, they called it a weather and science day. And they said, “Well, we’re going to bring a local meteorologist and you. And have you talked to a couple hundred kids at the stadium?” And they put that out there and suddenly started to sell more tickets.

I don’t know. They put about 10,000 people in the stands, and we thought, “Well, this is maybe Guinness World Record worthy. Has anybody ever done the same experiment with 10,000 people at the same time?” So we had supplies, these great big long bags, if you remember Stephan, they’re called windbags. They’re a tube that you can inflate in a single breath of air. It’s 45 liters of air, but you can do it in one breath. If you understand Bernoulli’s principle, there’s a trick to holding the bag and blowing it into the bag, but it blows up instantly. It’s amazing. And we did that with 10,000 people all at the same time.

And so that was Guinness World Record worthy. And I found out that as soon as you set a Guinness World Record, seconds later, somebody will break it, which is fine. That’s the whole idea. You’re trying to be a catalyst for this. And we’ve gone. I think this whole podcast has gone back to that philosophy of, you don’t try to hoard it like it’s mine, mine. You can’t have it. It’s just you put it out there, and you see what other people do with it, which is kind of what a teacher is supposed to do in the first place.

That’s why I’ve been so lucky to have this intersection between business and education: because I’ve gotten a chance to think both ways, put that hat on different ways, and hopefully merge those together. That’s why those keynotes and getting a chance to spend some time with an audience are so much fun for me, because there are some insights that I think you can only have when you have those two different perspectives.

Yeah. Do you miss running an e-commerce business?

As soon as you set a Guinness World Record, seconds later, somebody will break it, which is fine. That’s the whole idea. You’re trying to be a catalyst for this.

Off camera, Carly just laughed because she’s been busy for a long time. The answer is no, I don’t miss it. I think I missed the fraternity. My wife Renee really ran stevespanglerscience.com, so she was in charge of the 47 employees, whoever he had in the overseas factories, and so forth. And she said, “You loved it so much because you treated it as your fraternity. You just show up and blow shit up and then go into the warehouse and do things with workers and pull them off the line that they should be building these kits and stuff. And you’re going to check this out. Let me light your hands on fire.”

I was just testing out new experiments, and she said, “So you liked that engagement aspect of it?” I was trying to run a business, you know. And so I think in today’s landscape, Stephan, there’s no way I’d start up an E-commerce site given what we see on Amazon. Stevespangerscience.com really has been relegated to Amazon. So when you go to stevespanglerscience.com, you’ll see that the new owners of that, a very large conglomerate, they own these big education companies, have decided to push all sales to Amazon because that’s the best way they can service the customers. Given the customer expectations of what they want, this free shipping and being able to do everything on this multi-billion dollar website, there’s no way a small little website could do that. So I’d be interested. That’s one of those offline conversations I’d love to have with you sometime because you’re always like, “No, do it, Steve.” But I don’t know how it ever competes with those big platforms today.

And how would I, as a teacher with small little experiments? If I were just starting this business today, I wouldn’t know how to get Amazon’s attention. So I’d have to learn new rules to play. I’m happy that we did what we did at the time and very thankful that we were offered. Somebody wanted to buy the company that they did in 2018. We had really 25 years worth, Stephan. Twenty-five years are working pretty hard with it. And I wasn’t ready to sell, but my wife said sold.

So we started six months of discovery and everything else to sell stevespanglerscience.com, our kid of the month club, amazing toys, and everything else around those products. So, I do miss those days of thinking of product ideas and doing it myself. I can give that product idea and license it to somebody else today. But those days of running into the warehouse, getting stuff, then putting it online, actually doing it on TV, and seeing people start to order provided me tremendous satisfaction.

Yeah, yeah. So, is there anything you regret about selling the business, pivoting, changing your focus or? It’s all good. It’s all perfect.

No, it’s all good that I feel very fortunate to have people who saw our vision and said, “You built a brand, and we want that.” The company that bought Steve Spangler Science is a much larger company called Excelligence Learning Corporation. They own things like educators and understand the brand’s discount school supply epi, the people who provide materials for your kids when they go to school. They get a kit they can buy of all those materials. Frog Street. I mean, these are big, big, really good stuff. These are big brands. 

I remember the CEO at the time visiting us after a couple of months of discussion, and he said, “I love all the products. Here in our showroom,” we had an archive room. He says, “I love all the products, but I’m buying that little yellow logo that says Steve Spangler Science. That’s what I’m buying.” He understood that he was buying a brand, and they would leverage that brand. And I’m very proud that somehow, as teachers, we could create this brand and that they found value in that brand. I’m just very thankful for what they did and for allowing me to stay on in an advisory capacity. What makes me sad is that of the 350 products, none of them are available anymore. What makes me sad is to see some of my chemistry disappear, my unique formula for slime, a very different version of nonborax slime, or those kinds of things disappear.

But they had to decide that they just didn’t sell the way they wanted them to. And so you have to let go of certain things. And so that’s what these bigger brands understand. I was just a little entrepreneur. I’d sell anything, come up with an idea and sell anything. That’s why we had 350 products. I miss getting to work with you. I miss calling you in the middle of the night, “the site’s down, Stephan.” “I need to do this or look at all this traffic.” I miss those days of collaborating with you and you challenging me. Try this, do this. I do miss those days, for sure. There is something very entrepreneurial about that that I met.

Yeah, that was fun. You’re one of my favorite clients. So, what would be a little secret or ninja tip wisdom nugget to leave our listener or viewer with regarding getting massive view counts, watch time, or subscriber numbers? Right. With 2 billion views and 2 million subscribers, you certainly have the chops. And it’s just something very, I don’t know, ninja or listener.

The more focused and concise the content, the greater the viewer engagement, resulting in more follows.

Thanks for asking me that. There’s all of your guests. They have far more credentials than I do, but it’s easy to get views from my standpoint. You can work the algorithm now to understand how to get views. We had a little experiment that took place a year and a half, almost two years ago, where we took content very specifically; I took 100 videos that I had already put out on Instagram, on TikTok, on YouTube and on Facebook. So those are the four platforms, right? And I took that same video and looked at the view count. So, let’s just say it’s the spinning penny trick.

And I got 10,000 views on the spinning penny trick. The video was a minute and 59 seconds. Right? That’s our thing. So we took that same video and simply. We didn’t re-edit it; we just chopped it down. We just pulled in the sides to make it as easy as possible and simply said, “What would happen if we only showed 20 seconds of the video? What’s the best 20 seconds that would possibly grab someone’s attention?” And for every video, I could come up with 20 seconds for people to watch. Never go over 30. Right? And so that was part of our experiment.

We did it with a hundred videos. That took us. We had three per week, so you can kind of do the math of how long it took us. At the end of that little experiment, which I think was seven months or something like that, we had gained 400,000 subscribers across those platforms, which is pretty cool. No, I’m sorry, just YouTube. So across all platforms, maybe 800,000 subscribers, but we had gained 400 and some million views.

And so we realized the shorter the content, the more focused the content, the more focused on the viewer’s engagement, the more they would click follow, right? I’m not selling anything. I’m not selling pennies and hex nuts. What I’m asking them for is their engagement. I’m asking for them to click the follow button. And never in any of those videos am I clicking, like to subscribe, or, you know, clicking and ringing the bell or whatever. I’m not asking for any of that.

Yes.

So they’re just doing it. And so now, across all those platforms, I’m happy to say that we’re almost close to 6 million followers. So those subscribers, that’s gold. When we have something to announce, a new book announcer, or something I want them to engage in, or “Hey, guess what, we’re going to space. And I want you to watch this experiment.” Those followers are gold. So, I think ninjas’ tip is to watch what they’re doing. And less time is more engaging right now.

And does that? Do I necessarily get to teach everything in those 20 seconds? No, but I definitely get their attention. And if I get their attention enough, will they go to the website, or will they go to any other channel that I might have and try to learn more? And so YouTube kind of helps TikTok, TikTok helps Facebook, whatever it is along the way, they all kind of work off each other, hopefully. My job is when I’m done stepping, I hope I’m 80 years old, and some kid comes up and goes, “Hey, look at me. I just retired. But I worked at Lockheed Martin. And a lot of that’s because of the TV show I watched in these crazy videos that you had; man, I just wanted to say thanks.”

What you do will inspire somebody else to do something that will bring them happiness.

That transaction there, that transformational engagement, as we’re talking about in the new book, is a well-served life. Maybe what you do will inspire somebody else to do something that will also bring them happiness.

Yeah. It sounds to me like you’ve created a movement of world changers and are perpetuating it.

No, you’re nice to say that. I just hope that at the end of the day, there will be some great teachers, great scientists, and some people who find some sort of happiness out of all the silly stuff we’ve done.

Yeah, well, you’re an inspiration. Thank you for sharing with our listener, our viewer, all these great experiences and learnings and the whole hero’s journey that you’ve been on. It’s really cool.

Very, very fun. Well, I appreciate you inviting me to do this. And for our viewers, if you want to learn how to do some of the experiments, just follow any of the social media, and I will show you. If I was teaching your kid in class and we’re right before Thanksgiving, we’re two weeks before Thanksgiving, so I would be teaching your kids how to whip the tablecloth off this week. 

Now, we’d have a lesson in inertia, but the hook there is when you look at a kid and say, “Mom and Dad would be so proud if you could whip the tablecloth off at Thanksgiving.” You could see their eyes go, “What?” Of course, they’re not going to whip the table. But I have this little tablecloth, and we set the little table, and all the kids can do it. Once they learn how to do it, they feel like they’re a rock star.

And if I can get them to go home and just that little smirky grin on their face going, I could whip that tablecloth. I know I could. Or here’s something crazy to do with a banana, here’s how to play with your food, or make Diet Coke and regular Coke float and sink or whatever. You can just plant those little seasoned kids. That’s what I would do if I were your kid’s teacher this week. So just go to Instagram, TikTok, or any of those along the way and take a look, and you’ll see what I’ll be teaching your kid this week.

Yeah. Awesome. All right, well, thank you, Steve. Your website is stevespangler.com. So thank you again, and thank you, listener. Thank you, viewer, for being part of my tribe and movement, and I hope you have a fantastic week. I’m your host, Stephan Spencer, signing off.

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Aim for 12-second snippets. Quick, engaging videos are perfect for capturing attention on platforms like TikTok and Instagram, where shorter content is king.

Stay flexible with my content creation strategies. Platforms evolve, and so should my methods to stay relevant.

Share hands-on, do-it-yourself content. Tutorials and simple experiments not only intrigue my audience but also provide practical value, fostering a deeper connection.

Simple content often goes viral. Create easily replicable and straightforward content that viewers can try themselves, boosting shareability.

Engage with my most loyal followers. Their deep connection and enthusiasm can amplify my reach and create a dedicated community around my content.

Craft content that evokes emotions. Memorable experiences and emotional connections make my content stick in viewers’ minds and keep them coming back.

Focus on SEO-friendly titles and descriptions. Thoughtful optimization improves discoverability and helps my content attract the right audience more effectively.

Prioritize providing value to my audience. Offering useful content and resources builds trust and establishes my credibility over time.

Keep up with trends on my preferred platforms. Engaging with trending formats and themes ensures my content stays fresh and relevant to viewers.

Visit Steve Spangler’s website, stevespangler.com, for amazing science experiments and unforgettable learning experiences.

About Steve Spangler

Steve Spangler is a best-selling author, STEM educator, and business leader, and he is branded by TIME Magazine as one of their “most influential people of the year” because of his passion for inspiring the next generation of scientists and engineers. With more than 2,100 television appearances and multiple Emmy awards to his credit, Steve is also a regular guest on the Ellen DeGeneres Show, where she dubbed him America’s Science Teacher.

Steve’s catalog of videos featured on social media has more than 2 billion views, and parents and educators widely use his books and online experiments to increase student engagement and inspire young scientists to learn more about STEM-based careers.

Steve is also the founder of two companies: Steve Spangler Science and Be Amazing Toys, which manufactures science-based toys and kits sold worldwide.