Last month I took the plunge. Not the Nestea plunge – although it is getting warmer and warmer each day here in Florida. But I took the plunge to adopt a management tool, an editorial calendar, to assist me in my blog and promoting of my blog so that I could increase my reach and just do a better job on how I use my time. This is after a few months of poking around different articles, listening to a different podcast and roaming Bing and Google in what spare time I have during my late evenings. I think I’ve mentioned I am a night owl. If you’re new to my blog – I am a night owl:)

What was I looking for?

A primary goal for me this year was that I would have a consistent message and presence for my brand – “Dr. Yam”, Keep It Simple Coach and “Synergy Solutions Partners”. The past four years I have been boots on the ground building relationships, cultivating contracts, hiring staff and servicing those clients in building my business. And while that time has served me well, I know I was not covering all the bases to grow my business efficiently. A majority of my business building was based on my reputation, word mouth recommendation, doing RFP (request for proposals) and heck even cold-calling (uhhhggg). Identifying a tool that could support my goal was in order – and quick. I wanted a tool that could do three important factors:

• Work with my WordPress site (just upgraded)
• Allowed me to manage an editorial calendar for my blogs so I could drop the spreadsheet concept
• Help with social media posting
• Lastly, amplify the Keep It Simple concept that I share with my clients and friends.

It would seem simple enough you would think, however, during my “tour de web” experience, the results were kind of limited. But I did luck up – and discovered CoSchedule. Because if you are a solopreneur like when I started about five years, I did it all. Which means in most cases it didn’t always go well.

What is CoSchedule?

CoSchedule allows me to build out my entire marketing strategy from one master calendar, collaborate with my soon to be a virtual assistant and streamline my entire workflow aka “processes” in one place.  This includes my weekly blog and social media posts to promote my blog and services so that can grow my tribe of aspiring entrepreneurs.   After working with it during my free trial period of 14 days, I think I had it pretty much figured it out, and had gotten my groove. I can see how CoSchedule is becoming such a popular marketing calendar and growing. Here is what the dashboard or what I like to call “grand central station” looks like.

Integration with WordPress

When I decided to redesign my company website using WordPress and BlueHost as my host site, I also committed to blogging. It was time to capture the conversations that I was having with my current clients and begin my business building campaign online. I don’t write for a living – but I have found that blogging is a great way to connect with potential and current clients. I had downloaded several blog planning templates from random sites but they were all spreadsheets and I just could not wrap my head around managing my work in a spreadsheet. Don’t get me wrong – I am very techie, in fact, I’ve taught MSOffice in a past life. And I don’t begrudge those that do, but when I know there has got to be a better way I start digging. Thus, that’s when started my “tour de web” search for a better solution. And while I did find several options, this program really got my attention.

There is a free WordPress plug-in that allows you to create or edit a post within my CoSchedule website account. Or from my WordPress account, I have the ability to access the CoSchedule. Which is really convenient when I don’t have to jump between platforms to ensure my content is aligned to my calendar. And for those of you that have more than one site that you manager, CoSchedule allows your one license to be used on multiple sites.

Manage an Editorial Calendar

I am a visual learner. Not to mention very time conscience. The calendar view feature was an answer to my prayer. I can take an afternoon and map out my topics for as far out as I choose. By having a month at a glance view, it gives me an opportunity to consider holidays and special dates that I can take advantage of as I prepare my content. I can also just brain dump and not set a date to a post. This is very handy when an idea pops in my head and rather than jot it in my journal, I can simply add it to my “workboard” and schedule later. There is also a way to filter the published from the draft versions of a post.

A huge bonus is they offer a headline analyzer. It scores how effective the blog title will be in gaining SEO traction. The goal is to create scannable digestible headlines with the right amount of words and characters. You can go from red to yellow to green 70%+. What I really like about it that it makes me rethink the title I thought was cute but probably to others, not so much so.

Help with Social Media posting

The super duper feature is the social campaign feature. It allows you to create multiple social messages easily, up to 8 social media accounts (Twitter, Facebook, Facebook Groups, Instagram, Linkedin, Pinterest, Google+ . You connect the campaign to an individual post. And just like the blog, you can plan your post out ahead of time incorporating unique text, and by adding the permalink it will grab a title, excerpt, and all the images while still allowing for the all important hashtag.  In addition, you can stagger the multiple messages for each social platform as far out as you like.

Check back as I hope to have figured out the Email and Reque features and how I have decided to incorporate this new tool into my daily routine. In the meantime – give it a try.

Not yet ready to get your blogs and social media planned out but you are ready to take action. I invite you to join my support and service group – The Small Biz Society, and sign-up for my next 5 Days To Build Credibility and Visibility Challenge or enroll in my upcoming Dream Launcher’s Journey masterclass events! 

Please share your thoughts and ideas directly in the comments. You never know how your words will connect with others that visit my site. Remember, being a business owner doesn’t mean you have to do it alone:)

P.S. Don’t forget to grab my FREE 5 SIMPLE Blocks For Starting A Business Report