Kevan Lee
Former VP of Marketing @ Buffer
A collection of 259 posts by Kevan Lee - Page 2
Highlights: * We spent $93,653 in August 2018 * We spent $3,041 on ads. We budget $4,000 per month (total!) * We spent $3,151 on software tools (our stack includes 28 paid tools) * Grab your free marketing budget template Tweet this ☝️ When I first started managing our marketing budget, I was a bit over my head. To put it mildly. What software were we actually spending money on? I didn’t know. What made sense for a monthly ad spend? Not sure. How much should we budget for the followi
Imagine a world without Slack .. Weeping, mourning, and gnashing of teeth, right? Slack is a ubiquitous part of so many workplaces. The real-time messaging and communication app has become the go-to for so many remote workplaces , distributed teams, and offices. Buffer , included. It’s also been a point of contention in our always-on, always-connected “alerts” culture. Are we too reliant on Slack? Many [https
“I just sit in my office and read all day.” This is how Warren Buffett, one of the most successful people in the business world, describes his day. Sitting. Reading. He advises everyone to read more, and that’s certainly a goal we can all get behind. Our personal improvements at Buffer regularly come back to the books we read—how we aim to read more and make reading a habit. I imagine you’re in the same boat as well. Reading more is one of our most common ambitions. So how do we do it? An
Prefer to listen? Here’s the audio version of this post: One of the biggest questions that comes up when exploring how to work as a remote team is a question of operations: How do all those people, in all those places, stay organized and productive? Since Buffer is one of those fully remote teams, we get the chance to try out many different strategies and tools [https://buffer.com/resources/remote-wor
bThere are very few moments when a Terms of Service agreement gets the spotlight. They crop up during the signup process then linger in the footer of a web page. On occasion, whenever the terms change, you might receive an email notification to let you know. Many people click through these terms with equal parts automation and trust, believing that the company behind the terms will be doing the right thing by them, the customer. This is exactly the trust we hope to engender at Buffer, and we f
For the Denver Broncos—and most any major sports team—there’s so much to share on social media not just at game time but all week long, all year long. How do you get the right content out at the right times? How do you ensure that all the awesome material from your site makes it to your social profiles—and know which content resonates? How do you get your whole digital team to join in and contribute? Look no further than the Denver Broncos. Their digital media team has a slick and efficient
Maybe this sounds familiar to you: I used to log in to each and every individual network to compose new posts, check what’s happening in my streams, follow up on conversations and follower requests, and basically perform any other little bit of social media management that was on my plate. I switched to dashboards and tools, and my productivity has soared. I’d love to share a bit about how I made these changes and the best social media management tools and strategies I’ve used for handling mul
When I went rock climbing for the first time, I had no idea what I was doing. My friends and I were complete newbies about ropes and rappelling and every other bit of jargon and technique that goes with climbing. We saw others doing it spectacularly well. We were thrilled at the thought of reaching the top of the climbing wall; we had no idea how to get there. I’d imagine that a social media marketing strategy could feel the same way. If you’re starting from square one, it might feel equal par
Before becoming a marketer, Brian sold insurance. Alfred was in the army. Arielle was a health coach. I was a sports reporter. And now look at us! We’re a team of eight Buffer marketers, with vastly distinct backgrounds and educations, who collectively bring in 20,000 Buffer signups each week. Many of us fell into marketing, accidentally or on purpose. We’ve been learning as we go. And where exactly are we headed? Good question! We benefit a lot from free marketing courses and great educat
We used to have no managers at Buffer. Now we have tons. And we all have a lot of catching up to do. For most of the leaders at Buffer, we are new to people management . We have a strong culture of nurturing people into more advanced roles and promoting from within. This is fabulous for the opportunities we can afford our teammates; however, it does lead to a steep learning
Where do you turn for meaningful stats on your social media marketing? I’m grateful for the insight from some truly incredible tools that help make sense of the actions I take on social media. How have my followers grown this month? Which posts seem to perform best? Which times make the most sense to post? The answers are out there, and there are tools to help you find them. I’ve collected a bunch of my favorites here in this post. Feel free to give them a try and see what insights you can fin
Buffer Marketing Report January 2017 * Last month’s report * All marketing reports * All Buffer reports Buffer signups 18,922 +26% Buffer for Business trials 1,732 +16% Social blog sessions 1,321,003 +27% Email subscribers 89,424 -4% NPS 45 +10% Kicking off 2017 with a new strategy for content At the start of 2017, we launched a new approach to our content s
Setting social media goals is hard. “How cool would it be to drive 300 sign-ups a month from Facebook Ads?” This is how I tend to go about setting social media goals. I pull an aspirational number out of the air and go for it. Would it be cool to have a regular, predictable stream of new users coming to Buffer via Facebook Ads? Absolutely! Is this the right way to set goals? Coming up with social media goals for our marketing team here at Buffer has often been a bit haphazard for me. Imagin
Buffer Marketing Report December 2016 * Last month’s report * All marketing reports * All Buffer reports Buffer signups 14,943 +5% Buffer for Business trials 1,497 +63%* Social blog sessions 1,041,679 -16% Email subscribers 93,232 -2% NPS 41 -4% * Trial starts in December were up in such an enormous way because of a change our growth team made to the upgrade flow. One of the things I enjoy most about working at a startup is that I’ll often have the chance to take on
Understanding how to leverage Facebook Ads is becoming a staple part of almost every social media strategy. And if you want to get your posts seen on Facebook, it’s becoming more and more likely that you’ll have to pay for reach with Facebook Ads. Paid advertising on Facebook seems to be one of the most immediate ways to impact the reach of your content. Though it’s not without its questions. How well does it work? What kind of engagement do you get? And what can you expect for your hard-earne
Buffer Marketing Report November 2016 * Last month’s report * All marketing reports * All Buffer reports Buffer signups 14,943 -15% Buffer for Business trials 918 -30% Social blog sessions 1,252,131 +2% Email subscribers 93,232 -3% NPS for Buffer for Business 44 +1.7% What makes for a great community event? We’ve been eager to explore that question for our Buffer events, brainstorming between intimate meetups and blowout conferences and everyt
How do you go from having no conference — from almost having no marketing team, just you being the 9th employee and one of the very first marketers — to a marketing conference of 1,000 attendees, acclaimed in your industry, a must-attend destination on the annual events calendar? How do you do all of that in just four years? We had the pleasure of speaking with Stefanie Grieser, International Marketing Manager at Unbounce, about the multifaceted strategies that go into marketing and growing on
One of the biggest challenges marketers often face with social media is understanding the impact is has on a business or brand. Is social media for lead-gen? For brand awareness? For something else? Measuring social media success and overall impact is a task that may not have one simple solution. So how do you know if your social media is working? We had the pleasure of speaking with Hiten Shah, entrepreneur and co-founder of KISSmetrics, Crazy Egg and Quick Sprout, about the most important m
Buffer Marketing Report October 2016 * Last month’s report * All marketing reports * All Buffer reports Key Stats Buffer signups 17,106 +37% Buffer for Business trials 1,394 +34% Social blog sessions 1,225,754 -.1% Email subscribers 96,613 -.6% NPS for Buffer for Business 43 -1.7% As we’ve thought of ways to grow our Buffer Social blog traffic, we’ve enjoyed thinking outside the box with growth. It’s fun to go big with ideas, and to a certain
This post originally published on April 8, 2014. We’ve updated it here with new info, screenshots, and a special episode of the Buffer podcast – The Science of Social Media. Have you ever found yourself explaining how to use hashtags to someone whose only connection with the word is as a telephone button? Internet language has evolved considerably over the past few years as social media has taken off. Hashtags are a huge part of this evolution. What once was a telephone button is now a social
Buffer Marketing Report September 2016 * Last month’s report * All marketing reports * All Buffer reports Key Stats Buffer signups 12,422 +25.7% Buffer for Business trials 1,034 -13.7% Social blog sessions 1,227,494 -2.7% Email subscribers 97,205 -3.6% NPS 56 -1.7% Last summer, in a tiny Icelandic coworking space on a Buffer team retreat, we recorded the very first episodes of the Buffer marketing podcast. More than a year later and sans thos
The Science of Social Media is a podcast for marketers and brands interested in learning about new and exciting ways to implement social media marketing across a variety of platforms and industries. Join Buffer hosts Hailley, Brian, and Kevan each week as they interview some of the best marketers from brands and businesses that are leading the way in social media innovation and experimentation around the world. We promise to keep it fun, insightful, interesting, and most of all, actionable. The
What does it take to get hired as a social media manager? Perhaps you’re looking for a job in social (or perhaps you’re hiring for one). There are a ton of different factors that could go into a successful stint on ever-changing social media. Rather than get stuck, we’d love to help you move forward! We had the privilege of speaking with HubSpot VP of Marketing Meghan Keaney Anderson about the specific attributes she looks for when hiring social media managers, as well as how a highly successf
How great is the Internet! One of the most impactful, viral, influential services you can perform online is to read stuff and tell people what you like. It’s true! If you’re looking for a competitive edge, a way to establish your authority, a way to get more followers, one of the best, proven paths to online success is content curation. It’s both as simple and as difficult as finding great content and sharing it with your audience. The difficult part is that there is a lot that goes into a wo