Visual Content Strategy: An Interview with Buffer’s VP of Marketing, Kevan Lee

Welcome to the podcast. I’m Shane Barker, your host of Shane Barker’s Marketing Madness Podcast. Today, we’re going to discuss visual content strategy. My guest, Kevan Lee, is the VP of Marketing at Buffer—a powerful social media management tool used by 3 million agencies, publishers, and individuals. He also serves as an advisor at Leap Studios. Listen as he shares insights about visual content marketing, social media marketing, and more.

Kevan, thank you so much for being on the podcast today. We’re really excited to have you. Why don’t you tell the audience a little bit about yourself—like, where did you grow up? Where did Kevan start off?

You were in Idaho, then went out to Seattle, grabbed a degree and a wife, and brought her back to the hometown. Awesome. So, growing up, how big was your family in Idaho?

That was okay. For some reason, I thought it’d be bigger. Two is fine. I had two in my family. No judgment—that’s okay.

Yeah, that’s what I’m used to, because I live in Idaho, and usually it’s four, five, six. “How many can we produce?” That’s another thing, which isn’t a bad thing…

That’s too funny. So, okay, gotcha. You had a normal-sized family, right? I think the US is like 2.6, which I’ve always questioned—who’s the .6? So then you and your family… you’re currently in Ohio? You were in Seattle, then moved. So is there anything like, “People wouldn’t believe this happened to me,” or “We were the only ones with two kids,” What’s a fun fact?

So off the field, you were calm Kevan, but once you hit that field and someone said “hike,” you’d lose your marbles.

He just loses it, right? Keeps going and they’re like, “No, no, stop, stop!” That’s interesting. So, are you still a big football fan?

What, is that new? Or come on now—really?

Funny. I’m a 49ers fan, always have been. In the ’80s and ’90s it was glorious. The last 10–15 years, I’m like, “I have to stick with them.” I haven’t been very vocal about how big a Niners fan I am. We were terrible, then did some great things, then suddenly we were like, “This head coach is too good—let’s get rid of him.” Makes sense, right? A few years back was so crazy—some players got injured, others left, and you wonder what can happen next. Probably shouldn’t say that out loud, because more might happen…

Yeah, I was worried that if you’re in Seattle, you might be a Seahawks fan, but we’d still be friends. I wouldn’t use that against you. At least you’re a Patriots guy—it’s not like we want to like Tom Brady, because he’s so good-looking, has a beautiful wife, everything’s perfect. But anyway… So, you’re in Idaho, then you went to Seattle. Which college did you go to in Seattle?

Wasn’t there a shooting there? I remember hearing about that—it was there, huh?

Crazy, that whole thing. Not that it’s your college, but any college. The fact that people do something like that, it’s just random. Why do that? Anyway, that’s a whole other topic—it has nothing to do with the podcast today. But when you said that, I was like, “Oh, wait a second.” Unfortunately, it’s pretty common. It just sucks. That sucks that kind of stuff happens.

So what did you study in college? Oh, you said journalism?

So you literally did it? Was this your newspaper for the school, or was it just kind of Kevan’s daily?

That’s awesome. And so how did you transition into digital marketing? For me, there was a huge gap, right? Like, journalism—how to get people to react to stuff, and writing. Some people might not see the connection, but I absolutely do for you. How was that transition? Like, what did you start off doing, and then how did that transition to digital marketing?

Well, if I’d known that… I mean, not that I needed to know, but I have the same setup with my team. We’re fully remote; we’re all over the world—same deal. I have an office here in Sacramento—since I’m in Sacramento, California—but I don’t have any clients who come here. My employees have no idea how to find me other than the address on my website. They’ve never been here, so that’s interesting. So how big is Buffer? How big is the company?

We run about 34—we’re no Buffer. I mean, we’re not, but it’s a nice little business we’ve got going on, yeah? So how did you run into Buffer? First of all, working remotely is awesome, right? That’s like, hello! You can get your stuff done, still be good with timelines—especially with your journalism background. How did it all happen? What were you doing, and then all of a sudden Buffer came along? You were like, “Wait, this is a good opportunity.” And then obviously you became the VP of marketing, right?

That’s awesome. How many years ago was that? Five years ago? Wow, five years. That’s awesome. And how long has Buffer been around—seven years, eight years?

Awesome. Okay, cool. So you were there in the beginning. I mean, it was the early years, right, when they were grinding it out, trying to figure things out. Then suddenly you moved up, like Georgia Weezy, and now you’re the VP of marketing.

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Right. I know you guys are definitely on a lot of people’s radar, and I use Buffer—it’s awesome. If not, I wouldn’t be able to get content out. Trust me, I’m a slow process. I have a small brain sometimes, so if I can outsource scheduling, I’m all for it. The right tools help, don’t they? They do. It’s about how you leverage them, right? Tools like Buffer have always been incredible for me.

And if I remember correctly, Buffer is, like, ten bucks a month? That’s so nominal. Even if I don’t use it a ton, it’s worth it. Ten dollars a month is such a small amount, and Buffer’s not paying me to say this—it’s just my opinion. I can’t believe it’s only ten bucks; it seems so cheap for what you guys offer.

That’s awesome. It’s cool to hear that. So let’s talk about visual content. Obviously, with Buffer, you can schedule visual content. What do you think the most important factors are when it comes to that? Because you have a background in content marketing, so what would you say are three or four big factors?

Right, the repurposing of content is important. A lot of people miss that and just write a blog post. But there are so many things you can do—make it a PDF, make it an infographic, slice and dice it. I’m getting a lot of traffic from Pinterest. I’ve heard people talk about it, but we haven’t really optimized for it or done much with it. I’m just curious: do you guys do anything with Pinterest, or is it not really a big focus for you?

Same with me. A lot of podcasts I listen to are affiliate-driven and say, “Yeah, we get a good amount of traffic,” but I’m focused on digital marketing, content marketing, SEO, influencer marketing, and so on. I don’t know much about Pinterest, but I’d love to hear from a company that says, “We’re crushing Pinterest. We have a million people, and this is how we’re optimizing it, this is how we’re converting people.” I just wasn’t sure if Buffer was that kind of company. It sounds like it’s not your number one focus, right? Exactly.

Okay, so let’s talk about Buffer and the type of content you enjoy putting out. What’s your favorite visual content? Is it infographics, or do you produce something else for different channels—Instagram, Facebook, Twitter? Which content have you seen really great results from? Which do you love to produce?

Do you guys produce that kind of content to educate the public about what you’re doing, or is it also because there’s a good backlink angle? People see this great study you did with 5,000 bloggers about why it’s so much easier to do something, and they’ll want to link back to it. I know that with my company, when we write articles, we look for studies like that, and we promote our own. It’s a great backlink strategy—someone might say, “Hey, Shane Barker had this on his website, and here’s the data because he interviewed these people.” Is that what you do? Is it a backlink play for you, or is it more about producing great stuff without worrying about being a thought leader?

So you guys actually have study chains that come out on remote work and so on? Why did I not know this? Why am I not in the loop? That bothers me…

Yeah, because I would love to. So how do you guys keep the team together? What do you use software-wise? For us, for instance, we use Google Drive and Slack for communication. What are the tools you couldn’t live without as a remote company?

That’s interesting, because I know Dropbox was trying to pick up business from Google or Microsoft. So you guys use that, and you feel it’s been good for you. How long have you used it?

It’s a natural transition for you guys—makes sense. I’ve debated whether to try it. We’ve had good success with Google Drive, though we have about five million documents, so organizing them has been a challenge. We’re working on that. But is there any other software you guys use to create visual content? Is Canva the main one?

That’s interesting. We did an expert roundup post with them for some Facebook ad stuff we were doing for video. I interviewed with them, and we did a few things together, but I haven’t really used the platform. My teams are on the visual side, but we don’t do tons of video, which is unfortunate because we should. I tell my clients to get into video, and then they ask me how much I’m doing, and I’m like, “Don’t call me out!” So we do some video, but nothing too crazy.

Because now it’s so easy to use—just create a piece of content in an hour instead of finding someone who’s been at it for 10 years and learning After Effects, unless you’re doing a really complex video. But there’s still stuff you can do to get your point across in a blog post. We want to improve upon that ourselves. They’ve already reached out; we have a good relationship. I think I even have an account—so that’s great. I love you guys. We’ll reconnect. We’ll keep the relationship going.

So what metrics do you guys track with your visual content? Like, do you look at Google Analytics, or do you just look at how Instagram’s performing? All the pictures you’re putting up—what do you see from them? What metrics do you consider most important for Buffer when it comes to visual content?

Gotcha. Have you guys noticed that on Instagram and Facebook, any kind of video tends to outperform—maybe not ten times more than a picture, but definitely more than a text-based post without any image? Have you seen that in the visual side of things?

Yeah, and I think it’s so funny. My Instagram is pretty weak—I always think you look at your own stuff and think, “I’ve gotta improve that.” Every week I’m telling my team something. But you know, it’s interesting. Instagram Stories has been fun for me. I don’t have a huge following, but it’s a decent size, and I’ve enjoyed creating content there. For me, I don’t post a lot because I feel like what I say each day isn’t epic—if I’m in Chino speaking or something, I’ll post a great picture, but day to day I’m like, “Hey, look, I’m eating a burrito,” and people are like, “Oh my god, Shane’s eating a burrito,” but nobody really cares.

Stories has been interesting, though, because people can follow my day, and sometimes I do interesting stuff. Like yesterday, I went on a run—well, actually, I was walking—and I saw a coyote run down the middle of the street, right in front of me. I was thinking, “Am I on drugs? What’s going on?” Another guy saw it too and asked, “Was that a coyote?” and I said, “I think so.” It was just random because we don’t see coyotes here—this is a city. It was in the middle of the street, and I thought maybe I should’ve turned left instead of right. I got a pretty good video of it, but if I just told somebody, “I saw a coyote running through Sacramento at midnight,” they’d think I was crazy. I can say, “No, I have a video,” and then people ask, “What else do you see?” When I walk, I just snap pictures of random things with no marketing angle at all. It’s just my daily journey—if I see something, I believe it, and I take a picture. There’s no strategy; it’s literally just me posting about my day. I’m up at 5 a.m. to walk, and you never know what you’ll see in the city, so…

Yeah, it does. Which, for me, is important, because I’d like to think I have a decent sense of humor. Like I said, this is an example of how things can get funny. On my Instagram Stories today, there were some pictures of condos—no views, just a box. So I took a picture of it and wrote, “Be safe, people. Safety Day on a Monday.” I thought it was hilarious, and people are like, “Okay, I’ll be safe. Oh, a condo—so creative.” That’s just me having fun. People say, “Where do you find this stuff? I can’t believe you. Like pants—who forgets their pants?” and I’m like, “Yeah, I forgot my pants this morning. Maybe I dropped them on the street.” That’s basically my Stories. There’s no strategy, just me being out early, running around with people and taking pictures of random pants on the street.

Right—that’s what’s fun for me. It’s random, but I get good engagement, and I’m having fun with it. People tell me, “I’m stalking you every morning to see what you find on your walks,” and I’m okay with that—no restraining order yet. They say, “Give it a branded hashtag!” but I’m just taking three pictures of random stuff. Anyway, on the visual side of things, how do you think that landscape is evolving? We keep hearing that video’s going to be huge, and we’ll get more plays on video content. Where do you think it’s heading over the next five years, let’s say?

Interesting. I play with stickers sometimes, like doing little polls here and there, which is more engaging. You put a call to action or ask a question, and it’s a whole new way for people to connect with your content. They’re engaging at a higher level instead of just viewing something. I agree—Instagram’s going to be really interesting over the next few years. Now, I know you’re at Buffer, but do you have any side hustles? I’m not sure if you can share, but are you all-in at Buffer eight hours a day, or do you have something else—like writing a book, a side project? Anything fun you’re working on that you can disclose, hoping your bosses won’t mind?

And when you talk about building your subscriber list, is that for a possible course down the road, or is it just to share your content? What’s your goal with that? I know a lot of people who do courses—it’s like printing money if they have 10,000 heavily engaged followers. Even if 2% buy, they can make five or ten grand. Do you have a bigger goal in mind, or are you just collecting emails for now and then maybe sending out one email for revenue? What’s your plan?

Interesting. So in theory, the model would be: once a week, you send out a regular email, but if you want to be part of the VIP list, what’s the difference between that email and the one for the general public? Is it like, “Hey, here’s Kevan’s new blog post he put out,” versus, “Here’s the VIP version—look how he beat this for certain keywords,” or “Here’s what we think of it”? Give me an idea.

Interesting. How big can you get? Can you tell us how big your email list is right now?

Gotcha, gotcha. Then I’ll have to look into that. We send out a newsletter two or three times a week to show people some content and share what’s going on. I never thought about monetizing it, like having VIP content. We’re also working on a course on how to be an influencer—basically a course to train influencers. I teach a personal branding and influencer class at UCLA. Really, it’s about how to build a brand. If you’re an influencer, how do you do this and that? How do you get an email address? A domain name? All the foundational stuff before you go pitch Nike from a Gmail account, right? They’ll say, “Wait, what’s this?” So we’re working on that now. A course takes a lot of time; you don’t realize it until you’re in the middle, thinking, “Man, this is time-consuming, but cool.” Once it goes live, hopefully we can make money and educate the masses, so…

You’re preaching to the choir right now. If my team’s listening, they’ll say, “Man, these guys are the same.” I’m like, “Hey, this is what we’re doing—this is exciting, look at this!” Then two weeks later, they’re like, “So what happened?” And I say, “Well, I didn’t realize I’d have to do 800 videos,” so I get a bit overwhelmed. But I try not to chase every shiny thing, right? You hear about starting a podcast, then you think, “Maybe I can monetize my email list.” My team might say, “No, we’re not doing that,” but I might try it anyway. It’s interesting because, as marketers, we always want to do something cool, always A/B testing and seeing what works. For me, it’s less about the money and more about, “Hey, I made a thousand bucks—let me show you how.” It’s just testing and having fun. If you’re listening and you get a paid email from me, please click on the link and pay so I can tell everyone I was successful with paid emails. Yes, cool. So about you—are you starting a podcast? I’ve heard rumors (and won’t reveal my sources). Are you doing one? That’d be fun.

Okay, podcast. I’m telling you, man, it’s so funny. The premise seemed simple, right? You just interview somebody, then put it on a blog, and have one of your people upload it to Amazon or Apple or iTunes, and life’s good. My situation has taken… I won’t even say how long—it’s kind of crazy. Let’s put it this way: we were going to go live on July 15, and my first interview is in October. So do the math on that, my friend.

We’ve been working on a really big site because we want to do this right. Everything’s good; we have to produce, you know? I probably have 15 interviews under my belt now, and a shout-out to my team, who have done a phenomenal job. But you don’t realize how much work it is until you’re doing it the right way. It’s a lot of moving parts: everyone going in the same direction, producing the content, doing interviews, managing the cadence—everything. It’s an ongoing process, but we’ve gotten it down to a point now. The cool part is we have systems in place, processes in place. Next, I’m going to do some interviews with a real estate investment company and other groups I didn’t even know I had. We’re going to do a lot of podcast stuff with them. So it’ll be nice now that we have the process in place—it’s not going to take seven months to get going. I’m excited. It’ll be cool. And if you need a fourth guest…

Yeah, don’t do it—just kidding. That’s the easy way out. Really, it comes down to processes and understanding your goal with the podcast. For me, my goal is just to talk with cool people. I enjoy that side of it. If it generates business, great, but “Shane Barker’s Marketing Madness Podcast” doesn’t exactly scream lead generation. I want people to watch it, enjoy it, have a good time, and pick up interesting facts—whether it’s about Buffer or whoever the guest is. I want it to be entertaining.

Sometimes we’ll have random conversations. Like one lady was in a cult for 21 years—who knew? Or we’ll discuss a brand-new launch at someone’s company. I like hearing why they do what they do. You can learn so much from other people who are doing things right. I think it’s important to offer good information but also keep it fun. I want listeners to say, “Wow, that was cool—Shane’s kind of crazy,” especially when I’m talking about seeing coyotes in the middle of Sacramento.

If you’re going to do a podcast, you have to understand the effort involved. You need guests, which means finding people to interview. Then you gather questions (if you’re doing a Q&A format), record the session—maybe on Zoom or another platform—then you have to edit out sneezes or anything else. After that, you’ve got to upload it to multiple places so you can build different audiences. You also have to post it on your site, send the guest all the materials, let them know it’s going live, encourage them to share, and then distribute it. There are more moving pieces than you’d think. It can be worth it, though, because you meet great people you might not encounter otherwise.

Personally, I’m not focused on business as the main driver. I just want to have good conversations with cool people, and if I get leads from it, awesome—but it’s not my primary goal. For me, it’s about having fun, meeting interesting folks, and making something entertaining for listeners.

And maybe it could be about doing it in less than a year, right? Yes, I’ll do it. I feel like everything can be a course. People are into remote working—“How do you do that successfully?” It’s taken us a while, but we’ve hired hundreds of people over the last, whatever, 15 or 20 years.

It’s interesting to hear about Buffer, because you use certain tools, and you keep your team going. I have a great team, and our hiring process is totally different now compared to when we first started. Originally it was, “Oh, you’re a writer. Great, let’s hire you.” Now we have a system to ensure you know certain things, plus you understand our culture. It’s more fine-tuned. It took a while to get there, but it’s nice. It’s fun dealing with remote culture and figuring out how to get things done.

Yeah, that’s awesome. It’s all valuable knowledge, right? It’s everything you’ve gained. I was just telling my son, it’s a different game now—you can learn almost anything. You guys could’ve spent $100,000 figuring out how to tighten up your culture, how to get a certain culture established, and now I can tap into that for $49 or $97 or whatever. That’s interesting, because it’s like talking to a mentor. I can go in, learn how people did things.

Like I said, I listen to podcasts before I really listen to them—but even when I started my own podcast, I hadn’t listened to many before. It’s interesting how these are put together, how the whole process and opportunity works. I try not to chase shiny stuff, but just today I was listening to something about private labeling on Amazon. My team would say, “We’re not doing that, that’s crazy, you need to be medicated.” And I’m like, “Okay, maybe…”

I think that’s it. You want to try cool things—that’s what I enjoy. We have our clients, our consulting business, and I write real estate stuff, among other things. But I’m always looking for something new. It’s not always about money; sometimes I just want to learn something. But I’m not a great finisher, for the most part. We’ve done big workshops with brands and the influencer side, but I definitely need my partner, the guy who makes my dreams come alive. Without him, I just come up with, “We need to do it all,” and I’ll put the strategy together. If nobody’s there to implement it, I’m stuck alone thinking, “This is awesome,” and it looks great, with arrows and check marks and all kinds of fun stuff…

Exactly. It took a while for me to realize that. I’m a doer, but only to a point; I need someone else to take the baton. I’m good for one lap, but it helps when three other people are doing laps too, so we can cover a mile together. That makes sense, right? So, aside from having a family and working at Buffer—what do you do to unwind? What do you enjoy? Writing? Reading? Something else?

Awesome, awesome. So what’s probably one of your top books? I mean, I might have a hundred favorites and you might have a few, but what genres do you like? Is it all business, personal development?

It’s funny—I like some personal development and business books, but last year I got into reading about motorcycle gangs. That’s a random fact. I saw things about the Hells Angels and the Mongols, and I don’t even know why, but I got pulled in. Maybe I was a Hells Angel in a past life or something. Here I am now. I don’t know what happened, but I was really into the gangs and how they came about. It’s weird to say it’s personal help, like, “How do I kill the gang leader?” That’s obviously not the goal, but it’s interesting.

I’ve been listening to those types of books, which has no connection to marketing madness, sadness, or anything else. Do I ride a motorcycle? No, because I was raised by hippies. I might ride a scooter and probably crash. I’m pretty low-key—maybe I’m out fighting local bandits on weekends. I don’t know.

Yeah, it is. I don’t even know how I got into a motorcycle gang thing. I don’t know—there must’ve been a great intro. I thought, “Oh, this is something I want to check out.” How funny. And you mentioned skiing, so are you a big travel fan? Do you travel a lot?

Yeah, well, no judgment. You don’t have to be the world traveler. If you like being home, it’s perfect for Buffer, right? You’re remote, so you can just stay at your house, and that’s what you want. I think that’s great. If there was a trip we wanted to go on, you’d probably say, “Let’s go local and go skiing locally.”

All right, you’ve got your international list. It’s funny: I love keynote speaking, and I’ve mentioned before that if someone from a country I haven’t visited reaches out, I tend to lower my fee. I probably shouldn’t say that out loud, because now anyone international will try to get me cheap. But that’s just me.

For me, travel is funny. I love it, but when I’m in the middle of a trip—say, 12 days in—I start missing my family. Then I’ll come home for 10 or 20 days and get cabin fever again, like, “Oh man, I need to go somewhere.” I’ve even threatened to buy a big van or minivan and just travel around all 50 states, do the marketing podcast on the road, and meet different entrepreneurs and marketers. I’m hoping to do that in the next few months. My wife thinks I’m crazy; she’s a nurse who works seven days on, seven days off, so she’ll fly out to join me here and there.

I’m excited because I love the journey. I don’t feel like I’m missing out; I just really like going places, meeting people, and having great conversations. I think I need that. So yeah, I’ll let you know when the RV arrives—then I’ll come to Idaho and say hi, if that’s cool.

I was a huge fan of Sri Lanka. It’s crazy that one of the hotels that got bombed was the same one where I spoke as a keynote speaker—Cinnamon Hotel. It was phenomenal. Great hotel, great people. The people of Sri Lanka are just awesome. I tend to judge a culture by whether people smile back when I smile at them. I’m this big, six-two, red-bearded guy, so that can be intimidating, but I like to say “good morning” to folks, even if it makes them uncomfortable. I figure, maybe it’ll brighten someone’s day.

Anyway, in Sri Lanka, everyone was always smiling. I also had a great time in India. My trips there were a bit special because I was a VIP keynote speaker; they took me on a seven-day tour of Sri Lanka, all expenses paid. So of course I loved it. I’ve been to Thailand, Australia—lots of countries. Each one has a different experience, different food, different people. I’ve never had a truly bad traveling experience. Sure, England felt expensive, but I wouldn’t tell anyone not to go. They might love it. Spain was incredible—the museums, the club culture, the food (paella, sangria, and so on). I’m not sure I’d call myself a “major traveler,” but I do love it. After two weeks away, though, I’m ready to be home. Then once I’m home, I want to travel again. That’s just how I am.

I actually have a client in Singapore. My first trip there was about three months ago—blew me away. The culture’s incredible, the economy is strong, and it’s so beautiful. Did you visit the marina in the sky? That big hotel that looks like a boat sitting in a pool? I was so impressed by how clean the city was. There’s nothing on the ground, not even gum. I even asked a guy at a chocolate place, “Do you sell gum?” and he looked at me like I was crazy. Later I found out gum’s basically banned, which explains why the streets are so spotless. I was thoroughly impressed.

The live shows, all that stuff—the food is phenomenal. It’s not cheap, but it was worth it. We had a great time. I’d definitely go back to Singapore and maybe Malaysia; I’ve been to both but want to explore more. We could talk another hour about different places—or Switzerland, that’s a no-brainer. Anyway, if someone wants to get in touch with you, maybe sign up for your newsletter, how do they reach you?

Awesome, Kevin. This was a great interview. I really appreciate you taking the time today, and I’m sure we’ll keep in touch. I’ll let you know when we send over all this fun collateral once the interview goes live.

Oh, thank you. We’ll talk soon.

Bye.