Why Organic Social Still Works (And How Brevitē Uses It To Drive Sales) With Dylan Kim

Dylan Kim is the Co-founder and Head of Marketing at Brevitē, a DTC backpack brand for creators, photographers, and commuters. Founded in 2014 by Dylan and his brothers, Brevitē creates premium everyday bags that fit both camera gear and daily essentials. Under Dylan's marketing leadership, the brand has cultivated a substantial social media following, notably achieving over 2.5 million followers across platforms like TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram. Dylan has also been recognized on Forbes' 30 Under 30 list in the retail and ecommerce category.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

• [2:46] Dylan Kim shares the origin story of Brevitē and launching the brand on Kickstarter
• [3:34] Overview of Brevitē’s growth to 2.5 million social media followers
• [4:43] How TikTok virality during the iOS 14 shift sparked Brevitē’s organic social strategy
• [6:32] Is brand-level involvement key to successful organic content?
• [11:18] Translating social media views into website conversions using post-purchase surveys
• [14:15] The simple but effective video content formula Brevitē follows for engagement and growth

In this episode…

Despite the promise of social media virality, sustaining growth through unpaid content remains elusive for many ecommerce brands. Brevitē, a DTC backpack brand, has cracked the code, amassing a staggering 2.5 million followers across various platforms. What unique strategies did they employ to harness the power of organic social media and navigate challenges like rising acquisition costs?

The Co-founder of Brevitē, Dylan Kim, a seasoned marketing strategist with a proven track record in scaling consumer brands, outlines how his team leveraged short-form video to scale a DTC brand’s social audience to over 2.5 million. Dylan emphasizes starting with a brand-led strategy rather than delegating social media to entry-level staff, ensuring content reflects the company’s core message. He recommends consistent experimentation with a learning mindset, using tools like GA4 and post-purchase surveys to evaluate performance. Balancing content variety with purposeful iteration — rather than chasing trends or volume for its own sake — can help you engage your target audience.

In this episode of the Minds of Ecommerce podcast, Raphael Paulin-Daigle interviews Dylan Kim, Co-founder and Head of Marketing for Brevitē, about building a massive organic social presence. Dylan discusses using TikTok to spark viral growth, creating data-backed video strategies, and integrating brand storytelling into short-form content. He also explores attribution tools, platform-specific insights, and the importance of learning from every post.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Raphael Paulin-Daigle: LinkedIn | X
• SplitBase
• Dylan Kim on LinkedIn
• Brevitē
• “Scaling a Technical Ecommerce Brand Through Automation and a Lean Team With John Ibbetson” on Minds of Ecommerce
• Fairing
• Google Analytics 4 (GA4)

Quotable Moments:

• "We’re a bootstrap brand, so I’m always really interested in getting attention for the lowest cost."
• "It really has to come from the heart of the brand and kind of work its way down."
• "We should be excited to post things, and we should be excited to learn what we want."
• "Post the best video possible — really try and just get a learning; find what resonates."
• "Trends don’t have a very long lifespan these days — you’ve got to be on it immediately."

Action Steps:

1. Make organic social a brand-level priority: Ensuring strategic alignment from the top down maximizes consistency and impact across platforms.
2. Focus on video content that delivers clear value: High-quality, audience-resonant content increases engagement and drives conversions more effectively than chasing trends.
3. Experiment with intention and track learnings: Structured testing helps refine strategy and avoids wasted effort on ineffective content.
4. Use post-purchase surveys like Fairing: Direct feedback identifies which channels actually drive conversions, not just traffic.
5. Track all links with UTM parameters in GA4: Proper attribution is crucial for measuring performance and optimizing future marketing efforts.

Sponsor for this episode…

This episode is brought to you by SplitBase.

At SplitBase, we design, test, and manage high-converting landing pages and on-site experiences for fashion, luxury, and lifestyle ecommerce brands. Our optimization program pinpoints exactly where your store is losing money most, and then we help you fix that.

The result? Increased conversions and profits for our clients.

With our team of conversion optimization specialists, performance marketers, and conversion-focused designers, we've got your back when it comes to testing and optimization.

Request a proposal on SplitBase.com today, and learn how we can help you get the most out of your marketing spend.

You can find us on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. Don’t miss out on our exclusive podcasts at Minds of Ecommerce.

Episode Transcript

Intro: 00:06

Welcome to the Minds of Ecommerce podcast, where you'll learn one key strategy that made leading ecommerce companies grow exponentially. We cut the bullshit and keep the meat. In a 15 minute episode, founders and executives take us through a deep dive of a strategy so you get to learn and grow your online sales. In the last episode, you heard from John Ibbetson, CEO of trueCABLE, and we talked about product education to increase conversions. Now, today on episode number 54, get ready.

We've got Dylan Kim, who's co-founder and head of marketing at Brevitē. We're talking about social media here today because Brevitē is a highly successful direct-to-consumer backpack brand that's managed to scale their social media audience to over 2.5 million followers. And as you've probably figured out well, social, organic, social has been a tremendous engine of growth for the brand. And, well, how they've done it is exactly what we'll be talking about today. I'm your host, Raphael Daigle, and I'm the founder of SplitBase.

Raphael Paulin-Daigle: 01:30

This is Minds of Ecommerce. Now this episode is brought to you by SplitBase. At SplitBase, we help leading eight and nine-figure brands such as Dr. Squatch, Hyperice, Amika, Once Upon a Farm grow through customer-focused conversion optimization programs. Our programs pinpoint exactly where your store is losing money most, and then, well, we help you fix it. So the result you get. Increased conversions, higher AOV, higher lifetime value even. And of course more money, which in return allows you to scale advertising profitably.

We've been at it for over a decade now, and we can help you manage from A to Z. And that means from customer research, conversion design strategy, copywriting, and development. We do it all. So we focus on your ecommerce sales while you get to focus on what you do best. So go to splitbase.com to request a free proposal today and learn how we can help you get the most out of your marketing spend.

All right, Dylan, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for being here.

Dylan Kim: 02:27

Yeah, happy to be here.

Raphael Paulin-Daigle: 02:29

Yeah. As you know, this episode is all about going deep, right? And dissecting one key growth strategy so our listeners can get the most value right away. And now Brevitē.  I mean, you've been running the business with your brothers for about how many years now, just for context.

Dylan Kim: 02:46

Yeah. So we just hit ten back in January. We initially launched on Kickstarter, and yeah, it's been a decade.

Raphael Paulin-Daigle: 02:54

And what are maybe just for people to get context on kind of the scale of the brand. Is there any milestones that you can share with us?

Dylan Kim: 03:02

Yeah, yeah. So we are in the gosh, I'm like losing my numbers here. So we're like a 7 to 8 figure brand. Yeah. Really just trying to use organic social to to really scale and hit those, you know, higher milestones.

Raphael Paulin-Daigle: 03:19

Yeah. And 2.5 million organic social followers. That's across a couple different platforms. So here we're talking about which platform specifically where's the focus.

Dylan Kim: 03:34

Yeah. Yeah. So I would say we initially got started on TikTok. And now our focus is YouTube and Instagram coming in second. We're pretty platform agnostic.

I feel like it's like wherever we get the reach, we'll take it, you know. And so yeah, it really started off kind of short-form TikTok first and has now kind of evolved into. It's still primarily short form, but just with YouTube leading the way as well as Instagram.

Raphael Paulin-Daigle: 04:06

Amazing. Now, how did it happen? Because I think a lot of brands are just obviously going all in. And it probably same with you guys with paid social. But organic social for a lot of brands is an afterthought and it's kind of rare.

You know, we've seen a couple brands here and there really excel at organic social. You know, I'm thinking, you know, Dr. Squatch has been one that's really killed it over the couple of years. In your case, Will, you guys have achieved significant scale because of organic social. So how did it all start? What was the initial strategy?

Or was it even, just maybe an accident?

Dylan Kim: 04:43

Yeah. No, no, it was very specific. So this was 2021. You know, TikTok I feel like we're all locked in for the pandemic. I was very intrigued by it and we were facing a ton of headwinds, as I'm sure you well remember from iOS 14.

And so as we were kind of facing those headwinds, we had begun kind of experimenting, tinkering. We're a bootstrap brand. So I'm always like really interested in how ever we can get attention for, you know, the lowest cost possible. Right. And so I'd begun kind of tinkering with, with TikTok, and I'll never forget it.

We it was early March. We had our first viral video. And I feel like from that point I was I was hooked. We had our highest traffic day in years, you know? And so from that point on, we leaned heavy into it where we were like, okay, how can we, you know, try and have one of those days every day.

And then, you know, with the headwinds, with the headwinds of iOS 14 and, you know, rising acquisition costs, things like that, how could we use, you know, similar kind of tracking and kind of workflow management, things like that. And lean into organic social with that.

Raphael Paulin-Daigle: 06:04

Right. So you said something interesting, which is when you saw the possibilities of it, you started asking yourself, how can we make that happen every single day? So I guess my question is, how are you guys doing it? You know, if we start maybe with a high-level strategy or high level, you know, bird's eye view on the strategy, and then we're going to go a little deeper. What does it look like?

Dylan Kim: 06:32

Yes. Yeah I would say if we're going top down right, I think it has to be kind of a a brand initiative. Right. Where and I think especially today, it's gotten, you know, in 2021 you could almost post anything and it would get viewership or views. And everyone was trying to figure out it was a little messy.

Whereas I think, you know, people and you scroll on your feed and you can see people have gotten very smart. You know, like even video creators within, you know, our space, our niche. You know, maybe in, you know, 2020, it was like, let's say like 20 people. Now it's 2000 people. So I think it really has to come from like the heart of the brand and kind of work its way down as opposed to the opposite, where I speak to a lot of other brands and they're like, oh, I have, you know, I have my social media person on this, right?

Or I've hired an intern or, you know, some entry-level employee. And it's it's good to get the reps up and good to get that repetition. But the true value comes from, you know, what are you trying to say as a brand? What messaging, you know, pain points. How are you trying to help your customers?

And then how can you use organic social? How can you post on, you know, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, whatever medium you want? How can you find a way to do that consistently not at a breakneck pace. You don't need daily. I would say it's just how can you do it consistently, so you at least get the learnings right?

It's kind of like the same way that like paid advertising would work, right? Where you have your tranche of creative, you're getting your learnings, you're testing things, you're trying to see what works and going from there.

Raphael Paulin-Daigle: 08:14

Let's talk about the content. So I went through your TikTok videos and your Instagram, and you do have quite a variety of content out there. But I'm wondering when you're thinking of that strategy, are you trying to be always content-focused? Is every video, every post about the product, or are you maybe going to diverge a little bit and sometimes, you know, have content that's more about the audience? What's the strategy?

What's the mix here? There was a time I remember, and I don't know how much it's true today, but I don't think it's very up to date. But there was a time I remember where there were people were saying, don't even post about your product, just post about everything that your audience likes. Definitely not the case today. I think people's patience is quite shorter, but I'm curious in your case, what's working today?

And let's add to that. Is there anything that used to work that isn't working today?

Dylan Kim: 09:16

Great question. Yeah. So I would say a big part of what we do is, you know, we do try to be involved in our audience lives. You know, we do try to kind of make content that they would find enjoyable and then also like have our product kind of be in that content as well, right where there's even like get ready with me. Content is kind of having a moment right now.

And so we're making some stuff kind of tangentially related to that, right where it's like, oh, if you've seen, you know, Ashton Hall and you've seen him dunk his face in water, right? Like, you know, getting ready and packing your bag and all of that is, is is a part of your day, right? Yeah. And so like playing into that. Right.

And so you can kind of use these moments to kind of make your brand relevant. But it doesn't have to just be like okay, like this is just to get ready with me. Video, if that makes sense. Right? It's like, okay, this get ready video.

And this is how like my brand is helping you, you know. I think it is also very related to the product where like, I'm sure there's certain niches and things like that where maybe like supplements or something, where it's like the product itself is actually not that interesting. So it's the lifestyle around it that becomes interesting. And so I think there's, depending on where you're at, it kind of like if it's just lifestyle and product, it kind of wavers. But I would say get the learnings.

I would say like look at the data and kind of go from there. In terms of things that used to work, that no longer work in my opinion. I think I always say like trends are kind of like brands are like, oh, like we can have whatever this like we can put this sound over it. And you know, everyone's doing this thing. And I think the hard part with that is that a lot of people watch videos and watch those trend videos for like the variety.

They don't watch it for you. Right? So you might get a lot of views on it, but it's because it's trending and like the trend is getting a lot of views. You're not getting a lot of views.

Raphael Paulin-Daigle: 11:18

Yeah, I think that's a good point. And I think on the topic of trends, I think what some brands don't realize is trends don't have a very long lifespan these days. Right. So you got to be on it at the right moment or don't do it because, you know, if you're two days late might already be over. I'm now how do you translate views into conversions?

Because obviously having a lot of followers, having a lot of views, you know, that's one thing. But are there specific things that you guys do to incentivize people to go to the website and to buy? How do you think about the conversion cycle when it comes to organic social?

Dylan Kim: 12:04

Yeah, I think it's funny because I feel like it's there's like that meme that kind of has the Bell curve. And I feel like I've kind of that's my trajectory where I think, like, if you make really great things that your audience resonates with and gets great viewership, then the rest kind of takes care of itself, right where it's like, I don't know, it's like trying to optimize any funnel where you're like, oh, I could tweak this email, or I could tweak this, the hook of this ad, you know, etc., etc. whereas it's like, you might just be better off, like, whatever, making a better email, making a better ad, right? As opposed to kind of getting lost in like the minutia of like, I don't know, like the old rates and, you know, whatever open rates and all of that stuff. And so that's really what we focus on is making the best videos possible that resonate with our audience, and then seeing that kind of trickle down. And that's kind of our first and foremost thought.

And then there's things, you know, like we use a post-purchase survey. So we use fairing. And that's been very helpful. It kind of cuts through the noise. You know you get a lot of you're blessed with traffic but you get a lot of bad traffic as well.

Yeah. As you can imagine, just because it's organic social. Right. Like how many products have I scrolled through that? I'm like, oh, I don't even really care about this, but I'll check them out.

And so I would say like one post the best video possible. Like really try and just like get a learning, find what resonates with your audience. And then two, look at your post-purchase survey or some like deeper level metrics, you know, things kind of that are not on these social platforms.

Raphael Paulin-Daigle: 13:50

I want to talk about tools in a second. But first I was wondering when it comes to the actual content that you guys shoot, have you found that there is a formula or a general pattern for, you know, the videos, for example, that the videos should follow? Or would you say that it's really just about volume and experimentation? At the end of the day, yeah.

Dylan Kim: 14:15

Yeah, yeah. A really important distinction is, I guess one, the formula is very simple. It's like, you know, same it's like very similar to paid ads, right. It's like have a good hook, you know, and then get people to watch the video. Right.

Like I feel like what's always so interesting is, you know, sometimes people will put like the most important fact at the end of a video, right? Or like at the end of an ad and you're like, okay, this should be like what we begin with, right? Like this is the hardest hitting, right? Like, don't give me a but wait there's more. Right.

Give me like give that to me first and then have something else be do that like a lesser maybe effect at the end. Right. And so I think it's those two components of getting someone to hooking them in and then getting them to watch the video. And then the second part is, which I think is very, very a very, very important nuance is it's getting people to experiment a lot, but not posting in such a way where like, you kind of cease to have the learning, like it's very easy to get caught, like where it's like, oh, I need to make like three videos a day, right? And you're kind of just like, well, what are you learning from these?

And you're like, I don't know, I'm just posting, right? Like I'm just going for it, right? I'm just trying to get those shots up right. Those shots on goal. And you kind of look back and you're like, well, none of that.

None of that really works. And it wasn't like I didn't have any good hypotheses for why those didn't. Right. It's like this. It's the same with so many different other forms of marketing as well, where it's like you create too many ads, Odds.

You have no idea why you've done it, you know. And so I think there's kind of a sweet spot between, you know, what you're trying to solve for and what you're trying to experiment for and the volume that you're reasonably able to produce.

Raphael Paulin-Daigle: 16:05

And I think you nailed it here. So, you know, posting on social is just like any other a B test or experiment. You should have a hypothesis. You should learn from it. Right?

You should make every move worthwhile, whether it works or not. You should be able to get value out of it as a brand so you know how to improve over time. Yeah, I'm curious though. We're talking here about quantity. Have you found that there's an ideal posting frequency?

How does frequency or quantity matter when it comes to your strategy?

Dylan Kim: 16:44

Yeah, I think it matters in terms of what you get to learn is kind of how I look at it. Where? Let's say you post a video per day and you're kind of trying to learn different things. Maybe it's like, oh, I, you know, I'm doing a man on the street interview and I'm starting it a different way. Or maybe I'm doing this like some sort of comment reply video and I'm doing that a different way.

Or I'm trying to answer a customer question in a fun, interesting, you know, or maybe I'm telling a story about the brand. And so a lot of it comes down to those initial questions you ask yourself to kind of get that momentum. And so I would say like starting there is much more important than trying to hit like we post three times a day. I think like a lot of that kind of conventional wisdom is really aimed at like get comfortable making things and posting them and then kind of going from from there. I always say we should be excited to post things and we should be excited to learn what we want.

Because I think it's really easy to be like, well, we got, you know, I gotta post a third video today, so let me just like, whatever, fill myself typing at the computer and throw something over that and you're like, that's great. But like, what were you really trying to get from that video or what were you really trying to learn? I feel like I talk a lot about like learning and education and experimenting and things like that, but it's really important to kind of build the foundation of a really strong strategy.

Raphael Paulin-Daigle: 18:12

Yeah, that's great advice. Obviously when we're doing these strategies, it you also need to know if it's working and what's working and taking all those learnings as you said. So you said you're using fairing as a way to get attribution and to help with that. Are there any other tools that help you better understand either your audience or the performance that you really love using, or that's essential to your strategy?

Dylan Kim: 18:38

Yeah, it's quite simple. I'm like a I'm like a ga4 like nerd or I've become one. I should say. I do miss Universal Analytics a lot.

Raphael Paulin-Daigle: 18:51

But many of us do.

Dylan Kim: 18:52

I know, I know, but I think like you have to track your traffic. I think if like, I don't know, it's like basic earth hygiene I think is something that is like profoundly overlooked, which hurts me dearly. Right? I would say just like throw some UTMs on things, you know, make sure it's not coming in as direct traffic to your site by any means necessary. And then that in itself will help kind of, you know, either prove the channel or disprove the channel.

Right. And I would say that paired with a post-purchase survey, you'll kind of know what works and what doesn't work. I think it's it's quite hard and takes a lot of effort to get things to work well. Like I don't want to underplay that. Like it is like this is a strategy.

You know, this is not like a, you know, like I said at the beginning, right. Like you hire some some, you know, someone to abdicate that responsibility, right? Like this comes from the brand. Yeah. And we like working that.

Raphael Paulin-Daigle: 19:55

Yeah.

Dylan Kim: 19:56

Yeah.

Raphael Paulin-Daigle: 19:57

Amazing. I think it's easy to forget about the basics and chase kind of the shiny tools and the shiny objects, and yet, you know, I mean,every day. And there are so many brands that don't have their channel group set up properly, and all the traffic comes in as direct, right? And those are the basics. And I'm glad you mentioned that.

We've been talking to Dylan Kim, who's co-founder and head of marketing at Brevitē. Now, Dylan, unfortunately, we're already out of time. I could have kept this going for at least another hour. But if people want to learn more from you about the brand, where should they go?

Dylan Kim: 20:33

Yeah, just I would say connect with me on LinkedIn. I'm Dylan Kim there. And yeah, always like anyone can reach out. Happy to chat.

Raphael Paulin-Daigle: 20:42

Amazing. Dylan, thank you so much for being on the show.

Dylan Kim: 20:45

Thank you.

Outro: 20:50

All right. Well, that's it for today's episode. And thank you so much for tuning in. Now, if you like what you've heard, and you don't want to miss any of the new episodes that are about to come out, make sure you subscribe to the podcast, and well, bonus points if you also leave a review in the iTunes store or wherever you're listening to this. Now, if you're working on an ecommerce store that does over $1 million in revenue and you need help with conversion optimization or landing pages, well, I've got some good news because there's a pretty good chance we can help with that.

Go to splitbase.com to learn more or even to request a proposal. If you have any guest requests, questions or comments, tweet me at @Rpaulinedaigle, and I'll be super happy to hear from you. And again, thanks again for listening. This is Minds of Ecommerce.

‍

‍