We analyse the degree to which the popularity of scientific authors on Twitter and LinkedIn corresponds to publication-based indicators as to their visibility and interconnectedness. Departing from the extant literature’s focus on the visibility of individual papers, we turn to the popularity of individuals on social media platforms. We explore whether this popularity is reflected in the visibility that researchers achieve and the collaborations they maintain in the publication domain. Studying a large sample of applied researchers in Germany, we find congruence between researchers’ popularity on social media, and both their visibility and interconnectedness in the publication domain. Comparing the effects of Twitter and LinkedIn engagement, we furthermore find that the characteristics of this relationship are associated with the intended function of the social media platform in which researchers engage. We conclude that social media platforms are a relevant channel of academic communication, alongside existing channels of formal and informal exchange.