Kevan Lee
Former VP of Marketing @ Buffer
A collection of 251 posts by Kevan Lee - Page 3
“Join us!” “Sign up!” These phrases litter the huge variety of email newsletter boxes you’ll come across online, and they generally serve the same purpose: Click here to give us your email address. They serve the same purpose, but do they say the same thing? Can one word change the way you feel about a button? In my experience, yes. I subscribe to the copywriting school of thought where every single word is absolutely worth stewing over and A/B testing because one single word can change ever
I often think I have a lot to do with managing my own social profiles. But managing 60? (mind blown) The team at Creative Click Media manages 60 social profiles for their clients, driving big results in traffic, leads, and sales with their team of three. How do they pull it off? Adam and Amanda from Creative Click were kind to share their workflows and processes for driving these results: everything from how they save time with social media management to how they iterate on blog posts and top
You might’ve heard the advice that your call-to-action should have one job, your email subject line one job, your blog post one job. Focus, with online marketing, is key. Turns out focus has a wonderful effect on building a business and driving results. Gather Social, a digital agency based in Nottingham, UK, takes this focused approach with every new client they bring on. The single thing that Gather Social wants to achieve for you on social media is an impact to your bottom line revenue. A
Follower count is often considered one of the vainest of vanity metrics. I can relate. I’ve had my fair share of ego tied to that golden number on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn—one day I’ll point out my follower growth to a friend and the next I’ll feel all insecure about the number not being big enough. Still, despite the vanity, there is value in follower count. While it seems like a smug number to chase, followers have a proportional impact on how far and wide your message sprea
The transparent monthly reports from Buffer were one of my first introductions to the company, and I’ve loved them ever since. Before I joined the Buffer team, I waited like Christmas morning for a new report to come out so that I could take a peek behind-the-scenes into the way Buffer worked. Once I came on board, I eagerly anticipated each and every new report and the chance to share with and learn from the awesome folks who took time to read what we were up to. I’d love to get back on a reg
When you’re a fast-growing startup, with social media as part of your company’s DNA, it’s extra important to get social media marketing right. Product Hunt is definitely getting it right. The company—just two years old—has amassed over 168,000 followers on Facebook and Twitter, and their content performs doubly as well as other brands in their industry. Plus, whenever there’s a new network (Peach, Periscope, Blab, you name it) Product Hunt is there, usually among the first. How do they pull
Our community has always been great at driving us forward, suggesting new tools , helping us better understand the challenges and workflows of a daily social media user . Listening to our community is perhaps our best source of information and ideas, so when you asked for the ability to add feeds within Bu
Looking for some fresh content to curate and share on social media? It’s out there — in spades! Almost too many spades, right? With so many blogs to choose from, the challenge can sometimes flip from finding content to share to choosing which content to share. We’d love to help. At Buffer, we’re lucky to have some data on the most popular blogs that are read, loved, and shared by social media power users. In the Buffer product, you can connect RSS feeds to your profile so that all the latest
What tools do you use to get your online marketing work done? Can you do all the same work of a digital marketer, and do it for free? The list of tools you use—often referred to as a marketing stack—probably covers a variety of different uses and needs, everything from social media marketing to content to email and lots more. Is it possible to have all these great tools without paying a cent? It was a fun challenge to come up with a way to build a $0 marketing stack, to find free alternative
Updated 5/4/2016: Added some new insights and learnings into the blog post here on the best times to tweet. We’re so grateful for the chance to learn from the community on this! Imagine removing all guesswork when you schedule your tweets, knowing the best times to experiment with tweeting for maximum clicks and maximum engagement. As someone who is working on social media marketing strategy or shares frequently to social media, this info would be fantastic to have! We’re always eager to dig u
Imagine having a way to control how you’re presented online, a way to identify yourself or your company and differentiate yourself from others. Sounds a bit like social media, right? Sounds a bit like branding. The two go hand-in-hand. Branding happens on social media, and social media is an outlet for the voice of your brand. Many people have found success with personal branding and company positioning online, and agencies have come along to help people with both. One of these agencies, Janu
Whenever I dream up a home improvement project for my place, I end up working smartest and fastest when I have the right tools at my disposal. It’s amazing the difference a good tool can make – and the extra time it takes to get work done without a helpful tool. Fast-forward to online marketing. How can you work smarter and faster with SEO? It starts with having the right tools . I’ve collected
Some people go to great lengths to find the best ways to share to social media. Social media management tools definitely help, and so too do the workflows and tactics that social media marketers discover to save time each and every day. This is especially true for busy marketing agencies who run social media marketing in addition to a host of other duties. The folks at iM Image Marketing, a digital agency from Youngstown, Ohio, most definitely fit this description, juggling social media manage
We’ve found it to be the case that with social media marketing, you’re either a) doing social in addition to so many other roles, b) doing social for way more than one client, or c) doing social and wishing you had the bandwidth to try bigger and bolder things. The solution? Having more time! Of course, time isn’t easy to come by, which makes finding a good workflow and choosing the right tools immensely important. WebFX runs social media for hundreds of clients, and switching to Buffer has s
Starting fresh — be it with a new social account, a new business, or anything — takes a lot of guts and requires a lot of passion. It also helps to have a little something unique. What that something is can be entirely up to you! We’ve found this to be the case for starting a new blog, building a new social media presence, or charting a new business path. And I’m excited to share what this looks like for one team in particular. Cat Killfoil jumped feet first into a new opportunity and quickly
If the concept of social media ROI feels rather enormous, you’re not alone. I am amazed—and sometimes astounded—at the breadth of the topic. So that’s made the exercise of writing a “delightfully short” guide to social media ROI all the more fun and challenging. I’ve given myself under 1,000 words to provide an overview of social media ROI and how to apply it to your social media marketing efforts. I’d love to hear your feedback in the comments! [Interested in listening to this post in podcas
I’ll sometimes find myself inspired by how jampacked and successful some people seem to be on social media, and I can’t help but thinking: What’s their secret? How’d they get so many leads and how can I do things exactly the same way? Well, thank you, Internet! Turns out the majority of these secrets are sitting out there in blog posts and email newsletters and everywhere else that these generous experts in lead collecting tend to share their best stuff. I’ve collected some of the best ideas
How great would it be if customers showed up in your store or on your website with a sandwich board on their shoulders, advertising their level of interest in what you have to offer. “I’m keen to buy now!” “I’m in research mode.” “I’m totally just browsing.” Well it might not be a sandwich board, but there are some ways get a good sense for this buyer intent. Today’s marketing specialists have a great grasp on sales funnels, the way that customers move from awareness to purchase (and beyond
Editor’s Note: Reply was sunset in May 2020, read more about the decision here. As social media has evolved, our use of social networks has changed: We’ve found new ways to use Twitter, Facebook, and more to share, to communicate, to talk about our favorite things. We engage more than ever with brands and businesses – brands and business like you and yours! At Buffer, we’ve been fortunate to have a front row seat to watch this evolution of social media for businesses, as it’s expanded f
The world of paid ads can sometimes feel a little overwhelming, especially if you’re new to the game and wondering where to even start. Wouldn’t it be nice to find a nice and easy (and effective) way of dipping your toes in? I’m only a few months removed from this post exploring paid ads as a total noob, which I remain, and I’ve done my very best since to be a sponge for all the paid ads experiments and strategies I can find. We just so happened to come onto a neat one here at Buffer. It’s s
Awhile back, we were fortunate to try some neat email tactics that helped double our email list growth in just one month’s time. Then we stopped growing our list altogether. We shifted our learnings from growing an email list into growing Buffer signups. And we’ve yet to go back. Odd? Strange? Counterintuitive? Yep, probably all those things. Most online marketing advice today will advise you to build an email list, first and foremost. We aren’t. We’ve had the same amount of email subscribers
What is the next big wave of social media? Maybe it’s Peach—or another hot new social network. Maybe it’s a strategy like posting times or text faces. (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧ It’s really hard to say! (And yet here I am saying it.) ? To ride the wave of the next big thing in social media, it often takes a lot of trial-and-error, a good deal of trendspotting, and some courage to try new things. I’ve spent some time reading up on what’s to come for social media and I’d love to get your thoughts on three n
There’s often a critical time (or two) in a business’s journey when it’s make or break and time is at a premium. There’re often times beyond this, once a brand is established, where time is still scarce and efficiency is the name of the game. The team at Smart Pension has felt both sides of this in the past couple years and has experienced the time crunch particularly on the social media side (sound familiar at all with your experience?). One of the UK’s leading pension companies, the Smart Pe
I am no good at a lot of social media things … which is a bit tough to admit as a social media marketer! I don’t use a smartphone. I’m scared of Snapchat. I’m not entirely sure what WhatsApp does. I can think of 50 social media things (and probably more) where I could improve. The things I am good at—mostly the things that Buffer helps me with, like scheduling, consistency, stats, analysis—make for a solid foundation, and I’m keen to make strides on the rest. Step one: Admitting ’em all! I h