Kevan Lee
Former VP of Marketing @ Buffer
A collection of 251 posts by Kevan Lee - Page 5
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
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
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 the strategies and plans I’ve set forth. And I’ve come to discover that Pinterest is wholly unique from Twitter and Facebook, and that I’ve had things quite wrong from the start. All these mistakes have bee
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
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
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
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 structure—donation-backed, humanitarian-focused, member-based—presents an opportunity for some really neat ways of put
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 with our experience, too. And there’s a lot of new info to go off of. I’ve collected 10 of the latest surprising, revealing studies on social media here in this post, with takeaways and insight into social media timing, Instag
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
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
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
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 sources. And it’s had us wondering: What all can a marketer do with Quora? I was excited to research this and find out all that’s availabl
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, which can be a big one for those who are eager to get involved but not quite sure where to start. We’d love to help people get started with social media. We’d love to help with social media marketing, f
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
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
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
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
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 workflows. Now that we’ve turned attention toward Pinterest, we’re excited to discover the best time-saving tools for pinning, analyzing, and image building, too. Here are 21 of the ones that have caught our eye so far. We’d love to hea
Did you know: Some bloggers recommend you spend as much time promoting your content as you do writing it. (Derek Halpern of Social Triggers has an 80/20 split: 80 percent promotion, 20 percent writing.) Wow, this is an area I fall well short on. I’m so impressed by those who hustle to get their content out there and in front of as many people as possible who can gain value from it. Over the past few months, I’ve learned a lot from content promotion experts and am starting (slowly) to work som
One of our favorite tips on getting more value out of social media: Share your blog posts and articles more than once. We’ve come up with a sharing schedule for every new blog post that publishes on the Buffer blog—sharing the post when it publishes, later the same day, the next day, later in the week, and on and on into the future. And in doing so, we’ve come across some really interesting pearls of wisdom. There are some headlines that just keep collecting clicks no matter how many times we
How do you get more clicks from Facebook? We’ve thought about this question lots before. It’s come up in our monthly reports and audits. Facebook marketing is one of the most exciting social media areas we’re eager to improve. And this month, we may have hit on a strategy that works. We’re happy to share with you all our latest social media stats and strategies from the last month—including what we’re trying with Facebook—in hopes that it may encourage or inspire some thoughts from you as wel
Imagine starting a blog with zero overhead. Imagine having a place online to write your thoughts, tips, and learnings and share with a built-in audience and an immediate potential for viral traffic. Imagine a really great writing app. This is Medium, a blogging platform from the creator of Blogger and Twitter. It’s slick and snappy and could very well be worth a deeper look for digital marketers and first-time bloggers. We’ve enjoyed experimenting with the best way to use Medium here at Buffer
For gaining more engagement, clicks, retweets, and replies, Twitter images work. Our own research has helped us see the value of Twitter images as being eminently click-worthy and shareworthy. There are a whole host of different ways to add these engaging images to your tweets. I’d love to round up a list of 10 favorite ways that we’ve tried with Twitter visuals (plus hear any ideas you’ve got as well!) The Data Behind Shareworthy Twitter Images Our early research into Twitter visuals for th
Having a list of go-to blogs can be a great source of information and inspiration. In our case, the blogs and websites we visit most often provide some amazing articles with in-depth insights, tips, and strategies that help inform our social media sharing. Likewise, the amazing content gives us something to aim for and ideas for what to cover next. We’ve shared a bit about favorite blogs for content marketing and blogs for advanced marketing. Now it’s time to ask you: What are your favorite b