For years, I blogged when I wanted to and never worried about a schedule and that was great, but then I started to want to take part in regular blog hops and series, such as cooking with kids, learning with manipulatives and project recycle.  I needed to blog smarter and use an editorial calendar.

Blog smarter, not harder. Why you need an editorial calendar

After trying lots of things on paper and having draft posts here and there, and the horror of a noneditied post being published I decided to give CoSchedule a try.  I have now been using it well over a year and a half and I wouldn’t be without it.  It saves me time, energy and allows me to see my editorial calendar at a glance and schedule to social media too.  Oh, and if you have more than one contributor on a blog then I would say that CoSchedule is an invaluable tool!  Using an editorial calendar free up my time, which means that I have more time with my family.

3 Benefits of Using CoSchedule

CoSchedule has a customisable calendar, both within WordPress but also in an app and also via the web.  I love being able to see at a glance what posts I have scheduled and when they are due to go live including the time and also see any associated social media messaging that I have planned for that post too.   I do have a paper planner that I use for this too, but as that sits on my desk, I love being able to know where and when I can fit a post in.  This becomes even more important when you are working with collaborators and contributors.  I have a regular contributor and I love that I can see her stuff on my calendar and so can she.   Use a google calendar?  Don;t worry you can integrate your CoSchedule calender to that is just one click.

Integration is a great part of CoSchedule.  This means I can schedule to twitter, Pinterest (using Buffer, who are Pinterest approved), Google Plus and facebook if I choose too.  I find this aspect of CoSchedule a great time saver and love that I can personalise it for anything I choose to schedule.  I can pick the image to share, what time and date or I can let CoSchedule pick the optimum images and times using its algorithm.  I don’t use it to share to Facebook, but that is because I use facebooks native scheduler and see a better reach most of the time.  I recently started using it for Pinterest as I suffered from a hijacked pin which was horrible and I have been assured that if you are the first one to pin a post now it is easier for them to fix this issue (so I schedule to Pin the post at the point the post goes live). I can also integrate my Bit’ly account which means I get stats on click throughs too.

Revitalise old content – What is the point of writing great content and it not being seen.  I love that with CoSchedule I can look at what posts have been successful in the past and then start sharing them again.  I use the top post information quite a lot.  It is great to can set specific timescales and then get that old content out to new eyes.  Find out what is relevant now and reshare.  This means that I am not just tweeting random old posts.   Plus I can do the scheduling from the top posts tab, I do not have to search for the post and do it from there.

The thing is CoSchedule can do the above and so much more.  More than one blog?  Don’t worry CoSchedule can deal with that too and all with one login. You run a team, then you NEED CoSchedule, you can assign tasks to multiple people and see the progression and change things simply too with CoSchedule you can create a simple workflow that works for you.   The fact is the more you use CoSchedule the more you see just how much it can make your life easier and faster.

The smarter I work, the happier I am.  I love working, but I want to work to live, not live to work and using CoSchedule as my editorial calendar allows me more time to live and spend with my family.  I love being more productive, I love that it helps me realise what content is working and how to get it seen, I love that it makes my life easier.