CoSchedule automates the time-consuming part of blogging. Allowing you to focus on your posts, and not on promoting them!
This blog is almost 10 years old (May 2010 was my first post!). I know that because my oldest daughter is almost 9. When I started this blog I had just gotten married but had no children and a lot less going on offline. Simply put, I had more time to spend blogging and promoting my posts.
Nine plus years later, my family has grown, my career has changed paths several times, and the time that I can dedicate to my blog has been reduced dramatically.
I added CoSchedule to my blog almost 3 years ago. Mainly to keep promoting my posts while my family adjusted to having three little ones in the house.
It worked great, so much so that I have been a customer ever since. Let me show you what I’m talking about.
Writing Better Headlines with CoSchedule
I used to spend a lot of time trying to figure out which headlines sounded good, and thinking about if people would be interested in reading the post based on the headline. CoSchedule makes that much faster.
CoSchedule integrates right into WordPress, you can find it way down at the bottom when you are writing a post. Here is what this post looks like as I write it.
After trying to get a really low score, just for a good image in the post… I ended up making this the headline because it scored better!
This is one of the features I use the most these days. You would think that scheduling tweets or Facebook posts would be… but those things can all be done with templates.
The Post Promotion Easy Button
As I said at the beginning of this post… promoting a post takes a lot of time if you do it manually. Creating social media buzz isn’t a one and done thing since everyone isn’t online at the same time. So spending time promoting new and old posts is a huge time suck.
CoSchedule is literally an easy button once you have it set up properly. (They have many create tutorials on how to do that btw!)
During the first month I used CoSchedule I would create each social media post manually and then schedule them. It took just as much time as tweeting and posting manually. Then I watched some of the tutorials on how to create templates.
The templates allow me to schedule all of my social media posts using variables just like a programming language. So right before I publish a new post, I go to the bottom of the WordPress page and select the template I want to use and apply it to the post.
Before I apply my social template:
After I apply the template:
The template even goes as far out as 6 months!
I try not to schedule my posts to be promoted too much after 6 months. Mainly because this is a tech blog, and more than likely things have changed after 6 months.
There is one group that is an exception, they are the posts that have a longer shelf life. For these posts, I add them to the CoSchedule ReQueue system.
ReQueue – Makes what’s old, new again
You may have seen my Power 101 for the IT guy post. It’s a classic – and almost 5 years old.
But it’s about power and cabling, that stuff doesn’t change. The U.S. of A. has been using 120v power since forever. So it’s a great post where I can add it to ReQueue and let it figure out the best times to tweet about it.
It’s so awesome that I don’t even know it’s there until I get retweets and likes.
Setting up ReQueue is simple too. Basically you create a group… then add already created messages to that group. ReQueue does everything else.
Pricing
I’ll be honest… 2019 was supposed to be my last year with CoSchedule. I didn’t have an alternative product I was switching to… It was purely cost that was going to force me to cancel.
CoSchedule cost me $480! OUCH.
My blog makes no money when you consider hosting costs, let alone the time I spend on it. So spending that much wasn’t going to work. Luckily for me, they made some changes that really help out blogs like this one.
There is now an Individual plan, its Retail price is $240, and if you do a review post (like this one) you can even get a 50% discount. At that price, it was a no brainer to continue using the platform!
So, why does your blog need CoSchedule? I think I have presented a pretty strong case. 🙂 And price should no longer be a barrier!
Happy Blogging!
Thanks for the excellent review, Justin! “The Post Promotion Easy Button” sub header made me smile, and I’m thrilled to hear you’re taking full advantage of our templates. (They’re a time-saver, for sure!)
Keep building.
// Janelle from CoSchedule