Kevan Lee

Former VP of Marketing @ Buffer

A collection of 267 posts by Kevan Lee - Page 5

Tips / How ToAug 18, 2015
How’d They Do That? Learn the Techniques of Social Media’s Most Successful Sharers

People are brilliant and amazing. I’ll often run across an incredibly cool social media strategy or format or tool or link and think to myself, “Whoa, how’d they do that?” There are things like shortened custom URLs, evergreen queues, personalized recommendations, and more. And I’m so inspired by the cleverness and resourcefulness—not to mention the great value and utility—of these methods. So I’ve gone about trying to figure them all out. Check out my DIY tips below for putting together eac

Content MarketingAug 11, 2015
We Stopped Publishing New Blog Posts for One Month. Here’s What Happened.

One of the implicit values in our Buffer marketing is to challenge assumptions. And one of the biggest assumptions I have about our content is that we should be publishing original articles to the blog multiple times each week. Well … what might happen if we didn’t? To find out, we stopped publishing new content for 30 days, focusing instead on repurposing and refreshing our content from the archives. I’d love to share with you every single thing we tried and all that we learned, both what wo

Online MarketingJul 30, 2015
The Ultimate List of Product Hunt Collections for Marketers

Say you want to get started on a new marketing strategy—collecting customer research, or creating cool images, or measuring ROI. Where do you go first to find the tools that’ll make your job as smooth as can be? I often turn to listicles and roundups that bundle together a big handful of helpful tools. And this is maybe why I love Product Hunt’s collections so much. Their collections are user-generated tools lists that are easy to browse and simple to find just the tools that I need. I’m happ

Guides & CoursesJul 29, 2015
25 Actionable Social Media Strategies You Can Implement Today [Free Ebook!]

We’re incredibly grateful to have the chance to learn from others and experiment for ourselves with what works best on social media . And we’re so very happy to share our best strategies with you! To collect all these favorite tips in one place, we’ve compiled our top 25 social media strategies into a free ebook that you can download below. We’ve included strategies for Twitter [https://buffer.ghost

ToolsJul 17, 2015
The Big List of IFTTT Recipes: 40+ Hacks for Hardcore Social Media Productivity

We are all about working smarter here at Buffer. Our focus on improvement and efficiency has led us to blog smarter , share smarter , and approach problems and activities with a fresh perspective

Tips / How ToJul 15, 2015
Twitter Tips for Beginners: Everything I Wish I Knew About Twitter When I Started

This post originally published on March 17, 2014. We’ve updated it here with the latest information, images, and resources. Before I joined Buffer, I barely had a Twitter account. It existed by its lonesome for a few years as a placeholder for the day when my work allowed me to tweet freely. That day came when I had the privilege to join up with the Buffer team, and I dove right in, applying all the Twitter knowledge I had stowed away. And still, even with a running start, I had so much to lea

ResourcesJul 8, 2015
Got 60 Seconds? Learn Something New in These 25 Short & Sweet SlideShares About Social Media

Slide decks exist somewhere near the intersection of visual content and written content, a hybrid form of information and consumption perfect for bite-sized bits of learning. If you’ve not got time to read through a 2,000-word article, you might have a moment to flip through a SlideShare. We’ve been excited to experiment with the process of building slide decks around the Buffer content we have here on the blog, and in the course of doing so, we discovered a trove of wonderfully succinct and v

The 4 Biggest Pinterest Marketing Mistakes We Made (And How You Can Learn From Them)

I’m a bit embarrassed to share my early Pinterest Pins. But here they are anyway. A pin loaded with hashtags , a really odd-sized image , an image with a one-word description , a Pin with no description at all . I’ve made a lot of mistakes with Pinterest, both in the Pins I’ve created and in

AdvertisingJun 30, 2015
The 7 Hidden Factors of the Most Effective Social Media Ads

I’ve resisted social media advertising for a long time, believing that there are a host of free tools and free strategies that can help your business grow on social media organically. What I’ve come to find out (and I’d imagine many of you have discovered this already) is this: If you’re spending money to advertise online, social media ads may very well earn you the biggest returns. (In some cases, it’s the cheapest way to reach people.) There are so many inspiring digital marketers who are

Online MarketingJun 23, 2015
How to Choose the Right Stock Photo for Your Next Project

You’ve likely got a great way to search the web for the best free stock photos. And once you know where to look, how do you decide which photos to choose? Should you go with abstract or specific? What is the best color profile? What is the best orientation? There are so many great sources for free photos. I find myself asking these questions most every time I pick a photo—how to identify the right stock photo for a project. There’s a good bit of research and advice out there on how to make

Online MarketingJun 18, 2015
Can You Run a Marketing Program With Zero Goals?

So much of marketing, it seems, is geared toward growth and traction, particularly when it comes to startups and technology. We are pressed on all sides by tracking metrics, pivoting, learning, and growing—a sort of exponential growth mindset that envelops, well, everything: content, social, email, community. If you haven’t measured it, then it doesn’t count. If you can’t measure it, you’re better off without it. We’re surrounded by this movement at Buffer, kind of like a stone is surrounded by

Tips / How ToJun 16, 2015
Social Media for Non-Profits: High-Impact Tips and the Best Free Tools

Whenever we have the chance to chat with folks about social media stats and marketing strategies , we are amazed at the many unique ways you all go about charting a path to social media success. Every industry and niche—every social profile, even—is unique. Non-profits are a great example of a segment of social media with its own unique elements and expectations. The non-profit structu

ResearchJun 15, 2015
Why You Should Share to Social Media in the Afternoon + More of the Latest Social Media Research

I love to see new stats and research about how to best share to social media. If it’s research-backed or numbers-driven , sign me up. These actionable tips are what drive a lot of our experiments at Buffer as we’re keen to see if the best advice from these studies meshes wit

AnalyticsJun 12, 2015
Our Latest Experiments With Medium, Instagram, and More: Buffer’s Social Media Report for May

It’s been an amazing month at Buffer working on some fun social media strategies and thinking ahead to some big new ideas. What’s a good Medium strategy? How can we gain more followers on Instagram? What might a Buffer podcast look like? I’d love to share with you what’s been on our plates recently, along with all the social media stats from our Buffer accounts. It’d be great to hear your thoughts also on the content we can write that would be most helpful for you! Inside Buffer’s social m

AnalyticsJun 11, 2015
The 5 Most Meaningful Google Analytics Reports for Social Media Marketers

We have Google Analytics installed on all the Buffer blogs (Social, Open, Overflow, and certainly also Happiness in the future). I imagine you might have it installed, too. And though I could be in a much better habit of checking GA often, I am grateful to know that all the stats are there for me, whenever I choose to look. The next question, then: Where should I be looking for helpful social media stats in GA? There’s just so much to look at, with so many new and unusual titles. I’ve done my

15 New Social Media Templates to Save You Even More Time With Your Marketing

Imagine having a quick and fast way to get up to speed with social media or to get your work done in less time (and with more confidence). When I’m in a pinch or into something new, one of the first places I turn is toward a template. I’ve built a stash of headline formulas, social media updates, and more to help organize my mind when it comes to working fast and learning something new. Templates can be a lifesaver and a time-saver. Once you’ve got your templates, we’d love to help schedule a

Guides & CoursesJun 4, 2015
Beginner’s Guide to Quora: The Most Helpful Uses for Marketers

The Internet seems full with useful, entertaining, and educational places to spend time, not to mention important places for brands and businesses to connect with their audience . One site that keeps coming up for us is Quora , the community-fueled question-and-answer site. We’ve mentioned it in a handful of articles on topics like idea curation and content sou

Guides & CoursesMay 21, 2015
How to Learn Social Media Marketing in 2 Minutes a Day: A Free Social Media 101 Email Course

We’re quite keen to always be learning new things at Buffer—new social media strategies , new languages, new skills and experiments . And we love learning together —with each other and with you. One area that we’ve been fortunate to gain some knowledge and experience is with social media sharing [https://buff

ResearchMay 18, 2015
Should You Be on Snapchat, Ello, or Vine? A Complete Look at Every Fringe Social Network

There are a stunning amount of social networks out there, offering some inventive, engaging ways for people to connect and share with one another. Which ones should you be on? Beyond the big six networks—Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Instagram, and Pinterest—there are dozens more that are quickly rising in usage or are super valuable for particular audiences and niches. It’s a ton to keep track of. It can be a mystery to know where to spend your time. I pulled up some numbers on these

Tips / How ToMay 14, 2015
How Can You Create Pinnable Content If You’re Not a Visual Brand?

As we’ve started to dig in on the best way to connect with our audience on Pinterest, we came across an interesting question: How can we best create visual content for Pinners to Pin? We’re not in one of the top niches for Pinning: food and drink, crafts, home decor. How can we make sure that every blog post we write is as Pinnable as possible? It’s been a fun experiment to see what’s worked. I’ll be happy to share with you some of the best practices we dug up with our research and how any br

Customer ServiceMay 13, 2015
The Art of Making Customers Happy on Social Media

If you sell something online or if you run a business with an online presence—even if you’re just having a good time growing your personal brand—you’ll have the honor and the privilege of chatting directly with customers. 24 hours a day. 7 days a week. This always-on mentality is an amazing privilege, and at the same time it can provide some challenges for small businesses. How can you best respond when conversations are happening constantly? And what if they’re not all positive? How do you ma

ToolsMay 11, 2015
Collaboration Tools for Social Media Teams: You Don’t Have to Do It All Alone

Just the other day, peeking into the social media schedule here at Buffer, I noticed that it was full of wonderfully-worded, completely click-worthy, queued posts—posts that I spent zero time writing or adding. Such is the beauty of collaborating together on social media sharing. Taking a team approach to filling a queue or managing a social channel is a splendid way of saving time on social media. You don’t have to do it all yourself. Others have amazing ideas and content to share. And of

AnalyticsMay 7, 2015
The Secret Reach of Your Twitter Replies, Plus All Our Latest Stats and Strategies on Social Media

Sometimes looking through your social media statistics can reveal some fun surprises. This was the case for us this month at Buffer. I looked a little closer into the stats from all of our tweets, including all the amazing replies by our support heroes. There’s some amazing hidden virality to these tweets! And there’s a great opportunity here to delight your customers and further your brand’s reach at the same time. Continue reading to see how this played out for us recently, along with all o

ToolsMay 4, 2015
21 Time-Saving Pinterest Tools for Businesses and Marketers

If you’re managing multiple social media accounts —multiple channels for you and multiple channels for your brand perhaps—it sure helps to save time with the right tools. We’ve found time-saving tools for Twitter and Facebook and our daily social media marketing [https://buf