How to Make Blog + Social Media Scheduling Easy: CoSchedule Blogging Tool Review

Finding time to blog is tough, but finding time to blog and post social media for that blog can be even tougher. That’s why I first tried CoSchedule a few months ago, and honestly, I’m in love with it. Here’s a quick video overview of what CoSchedule can do:

I started using CoSchedule a few months ago for Adult Ballerina Project and I also used it as part of my job, too.

What is CoSchedule?

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It is a drag-and-drop editorial calendar for WordPress that puts your blog posts and social media messages on the same schedule. It beats out the normal calendar provided in WordPress (and other calendar plugins) with the social media add-in. I love that CoSchedule has a “drag and drop” option so that if you want to quickly move a post from one day to another, you don’t have to log in to WordPress and change the scheduled date/time. You can also move a scheduled post to drafts and a draft to the calendar.

Key Features:

Here’s a list of other key features CoSchedule lists as including:

  • Drag-And-Drop Editorial Calendar
  • Schedule Social Media While You Blog
  • Save Time, Grow Traffic
  • Easily Re-Schedule Old Blog Content
  • Lightweight WordPress Plugin
  • Automated Social Publishing
  • Simple Team Communication
  • All-In-One Publishing Solution
  • No More WordPress Hacking

What platforms work with CoSchedule?

CoSchedule works with WordPress, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Buffer, and even Google+ Pages (using a to Buffer). One of my favorite was to use CoSchedule is to push posts to Buffer, so that I can re-arrange them using Buffer’s built-in scheduling system (pre-set times set by you). It makes it super easy to rearrange the order of your posts and even remove things last-minute if you need to — like if you discovered an error in a post and don’t want to share it again, but you’re on the go and only have your phone.)

While CoSchedule has no mobile app at the moment (a downside) — if you push to Buffer, you can have access via their mobile app to edit and change things on the go!

Multiple Blogs and Users

I love that you can have multiple blogs (great if you run many of them) and multiple users. While I don’t currently take advantage of these, I’m looking forward to using the multiple users functionality when my interns start. You can even set tasks for users (or yourself, for that matter — I often set tasks for myself so I remember certain things I want to include in social media posts in the future!)

See your top posts

I love that CoSchedule will tell you how often and on what platforms your posts get shared on. I also love that you can see what your top posts are, either over a specific time period or all time. Here’s ABP’s top posts of all time by social sharing:

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Other Integrations

I love that you can connect Bit.ly, Google Analytics, and Google calendar to CoSchedule, too! It makes it super easy to help track of how posts and social media is doing.

Test it Out!

If you want to test to see if you’ll love CoSchedule as much as I do for all your blogging needs, CoSchedule offers a free trial.  You can also extend your trial for every social media account you link up to CoSchedule (which I did when testing it out!

 

Blogtember: The Ways Blogging and Social Media Changed Me

Welcome to the first of my Blogtember link-up posts! There’s a lot more of them to come, too!

Social media has always been a big part of my life. I was one of the first people I knew to get Facebook as well as one of the first people of my friends on Twitter (although, I never had a Myspace). I started blogging my freshman year of college and loved it, especially when I connected to people who had the same quirky TV tastes I did.

I don’t think I’ve mentioned this before, but this blog was started as part of a class called “The Entrepreneurial Journalist” by the same professor who was the reason I started my old TV blog. While before the class I was running a personal blog that did feature a lot of ballet, it wasn’t the primary sole purpose. I needed a solidified topic for this class for an online magazine or blog, and I chose ballet cause it seemed like a semi-good idea, even though my professor wasn’t sure. But I’m glad I chose it, and I’m glad I’m still doing it, and I can’t wait to do more with it.

When it comes down to it, social media and blogging have changed me because they’ve connected me to people who are interested in the same things I am. I’ve found so many people who do ballet as adults and your support has been amazing. I don’t think I would’ve kept doing ballet if it wasn’t for the wonderful community. In addition, the running community has been amazing as well, and is extremely supportive. Social media and blogging keep me going with running and ballet, which are now an integral part of my life. I don’t think they’d be that way if it wasn’t for an awesome online community.

How has blogging/social media changed you?

September (and Fall) Goals

One of these times, I’ll actually have to go back and judge how much I’ve accomplished with my goals, but for now, I’ll just give you my general goals for the month of September and the fall in general:

Follow an Editorial Calender for ABP

I’ve become the worst at actually scheduling and follow a blog schedule, so I’ve set up a schedule of posts for the month of September on weekdays. I already know that not all of these will probably happen, but I’ll consider myself successful if I get 3 or 4 posts up a week, even if it’s not originally as planned.

editorial calendar

A (rough) editorial calendar for September!

Connect with my Fellow Ballet Bloggers More

Ever since making the switch to self-hosting (and really before that, too) I got really bad about follow-up on other people’s blogs. I’m trying to do better. One of these ways I’m doing this is following blogs on Bloglovin’ and trying to comment when I can. Seriously, if you read this blog and leave a link to your blog in the comments and I’ll give you a follow.

Another way I’ll be doing this is by hosting a blogger link-up on Monday on the topic “Why I Love Dance.” It’ll be a chance for bloggers to share posts, old and new, focused on why they love dance. I’d love to have as many people take part as possible, even if it’s just sharing a post that loosely fits the topic.

In the future: I’d love to host another TweetChat but I’m not quite sure what my schedule looks like for September, so that’ll fall into more of a fall to-do along with more link-ups.

Be Successful at Both Running and Dance

I often feel like running and ballet are competing factors in my life–it seems like I’ve yet to have a month where I happy with my performance in both. My goal for the fall is to not over do one or the other and try to find some sort of happy balance between the two–even if it means having to run quickly from a running event (with a free gift card and discount running registrations!) to ballet class if it’s the only way I can fit both in this week.

and…because it’s always a goal: STRETCH

Stretching and flexibility is always on my goal list, and I know I need to do it more. There will hopefully be more stretching guides up here as well in the fall. 

What do you hope to accomplish this fall?

Birthday Celebrations–Urban Scramble and more!

Birthday Cake

Today is my 22nd birthday (yes, cue the Taylor Swift music now). In the afternoon, I’ll be covering Campus Philly‘s Opportunity Fair via social media (both via their Twitter, Instagram and Vine and mine as well) but I’ll try not to overwhelm them.

After that’s over, I’ll be heading to Philadelphia Runner‘s Urban Scramble. It was supposed to be last week, but a chance of severe thunderstorms made them reschedule it (it barely rained, so I got to go to ballet class instead). I know some people were upset that the Urban Scramble got reschedule, but I was pretty happy. It gave me something fun and exciting to do on my birthday instead of just heading to work. So it getting rescheduled for today was kind of a win-win for me.

Other birthday weekend plans include going out to fancy dinner at White Dog Cafe (and using up some of a gift card to there ages ago) and ballet early on Saturday. Hopefully I’ll be able to squeeze in another run (besides the Urban Scramble) along the Schuylkill river trail, but I’ll be pretty busy this weekend because I’ll also be attending a Girl Develop It Philly workshop on WordPress which I received a scholarship for to cover the costs. I’m excited to continue to improve the look and functions of this website as well as to continue to spread the community aspect of it. I’m still looking for guest bloggers and people to interview, so if you’re a blogger, runner or adult ballerina (or instructor) and you’re interested in participating in some aspect of Adult Ballerina Project , make sure you fill out this Google Form.

What do your weekend plans consist of?

Liebster Award!

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First of all, thank you so much to Alice in Danceland for nominating me for the Liebster Award that’s been going around the blogosphere again recently. I’ve been nominated before but didn’t have the time to take part at the time–but now I do! The rules are as follows:

Here are the rules for accepting the award:

  • Thank the person who nominated you and include a link back to their blog.
  • List 11 random facts about yourself.
  • Answer the 11 questions given to you.
  • Create 11 questions for the bloggers you nominate.
  • Choose 11 bloggers with 200 or less followers to nominate and include links to their blogs.
  • Go to each bloggers page and let them know you have nominated them.

11 Random Facts:

  1. I began dancing ballet a year ago.
  2. I also recently began running and fell in love with that as well.
  3. I’m obsessed with Hello Kitty and once tried to start a Hello Kitty blog.
  4. Before starting Adult Ballerina Project, I ran a blog called A TV and A Girl about my obsession with TV. My friends make fun of the blog title and started calling me Avatar Girl.
  5. The only reason people ever ended up looking at that blog was because I did a video tutorial on how to do Quinn’s braid from Glee. It got a surprising amount of hits on YouTube for how crappy the quality was.
  6. I don’t have cable and instead I watch almost everything on Netflix. I just finished Fringe, I’m trying to finish up Bones.
  7. When I do watch TV, I watch Scandal using my crappy TV antenna.
  8. I have super flat feet which has caused a lot of shin splints during both ballet and running.
  9. I’d be lost without my foam roller and compression socks.
  10. I’m working on doing more freelance writing now that I’ve graduated.
  11. I also love turtles.

 

11 Questions asked by AliceinDanceland:

  1. What is your favourite to-go stretch or exercise? Pigeon’s pose or downward facing dog. Pigeon’s Pose for my hips, downward facing dog for my shins.
  2. Favourite genre of music? alternative rock.
  3. If you could attend any professional academy or university in the world, which would it be? Hmmm…this is a weird question to answer since I just graduated. But probably Columbia for journalism grad school.
  4. If you could live in any other time period, what would it be? Can I chose the future? I’d want to see all the new technology that develops.
  5. What is your favourite social media site and why? Twitter. I love that I can tweet a lot more than Facebook updating.
  6. What is your favourite dessert? Fried ice cream. My mom made me an awesome fried ice cream cake for my graduation.
  7. What do you miss most about your childhood? Not having any responsibilities.
  8. What has been the biggest challenge in your life thus far? I think trying to find a full-time job will be a huge challenge I now have to overcome.
  9. What is one thing you want to improve about yourself? I want to both improve in running and ballet–and get better at updating ballet.
  10. How do you like your water? Plain? Infused with fruit juice? Seltzer? Plain!
  11. Any plans for the upcoming summer? Part-time internship with Campus Philly, freelancing, hopefully a job.

 

11 Questions for the Blogs I nominate:

  1. Why did you start blogging?
  2. If you were stuck on a desert island and could only bring 3 items, what would you bring?
  3. What is the significance of your blog title?
  4. What are your other hobbies?
  5. What are your summer plans?
  6. What is your favorite fruit or vegetable?
  7. Who is one celebrity you are dying to meet, alive or dead?
  8. If you could  change to any career, what would it be?
  9. What is your favorite animal, and why?
  10. If you had to give up a form of social media, which one would you give up?
  11. If you could only eat one food for the rest of your life, what would it be?

 

11 Blogs I nominate:

  1. The Active Gamer
  2. Under the Purple Magnolia Tree
  3. LoveBallet89
  4. Ballet Shoes and Mickey Ears
  5. Live and Be Awesome
  6. The Spicy Mermaid
  7. Back to the Barre
  8. Some Assemble Required
  9. The 109th Bead
  10. Thanks and Kittens
  11. Diary of a Slow Runner