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!

 

Adult Ballet Community On Facebook

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I know I’ve mentioned this before, but I just wanted to let everyone know that our little Facebook Adult Ballerina community has grown to 211 members! If you want to join, just send me a request over at https://www.facebook.com/groups/adultballerinas/ and I’ll add you!

I’m also trying to organize a list of adult ballerina blogs and social media links over there, so if you want to find more of your fellow adult ballerinas, that’s a great place to start!

Quick update about the forums + Twitter Chat

As you may have noticed, the forums are gone. I couldn’t get them to work correctly and they ended up created a lot of spam on ABP. However, we have quite the growing Facebook group going on at the moment. Just request access and then introduce yourself!

Also, I’d love to start hosting Twitter chats again! We held a few about a year and half ago. Let me know if you’re interested in the comments (and please leave your Twitter handle if I don’t already follow you!) I’d also like to get people to co-host and ask questions with me on a regular basis, so let me know if you’re interested in that as well.

Forum? Facebook Group? More Twitter Chats? You Decide!

I’ve toyed around with the idea of having a forum on Adult Ballerina Project for a while now (we even had a baby one for a little while)–but I’m not sure how successful it would be. So I’m debating starting up a Facebook Group for all the ballet dancers out there to chat, share their stories and their blog posts–but I wanted to check to see who would be interested.

So let me know by voting in this poll (and leaving some notes in the comments!) about what you’d like to see most, whether it’d be a Facebook group, a Google+ Community (which does already exist), more Twitter chats (we’ve had a few) or something entirely different!

Beginner Ballerina Profile: Belén Aguilar of En Dehors Blog

1016598_10151678173097733_143461741_nThis week’s profile is of Belén Aguilar, who runs En Dehors Blog in both English and Spanish. Make sure to like her blog on Facebook too, because she updates there more frequently!

When did you start doing ballet as an adult?

I started Ballet when I was 18. And it was cause I had back problems and my doctor told me the best would be whether swimming or ballet. And I had a ballet academy just around the corner, and I started there. Till that time I have never been interested in ballet and less in taking ballet classes, but now I can’t live without Ballet!

Did you ever take lessons as a kid?

I did have taken dance lessons, but not ballet lessons. I danced my whole life Spanish dance and Flamenco, which has all the ballet technique of the arms and some steps.

Why did you decide to take ballet as an adult?

At first time I only thought that it would be good for my back health, but then I realized that it was good for my whole body, mind and soul. And now is my passion.

Where do you take classes?

I’m taking classes in Madrid (Spain) but I also took Ballet lessons in Leipzig (Germany, that was a really interesting experience, cause at the beginning I didn’t speak so much German, but it is not a problem if you wanna dance, and I actually adore dancing there. I think is a good experience to change sometimes your academy (summers, or periods of time) to learn about different people and to enrich yourself.

What is your favorite part about ballet?

My favorite part is when you feel that your body belongs to the music.

What is your least favorite part?

The en Dehor part…I find it so hard to get to that. It takes years and years of training, but without that Ballet wouldn’t be the same…

Who/What is your ballet inspiration?

My ballet inspiration has always been Polina Seminova and also the girls who dance ballet with me, they’re such a hard workers and never give up.

What motivates you to keep dancing?

I think my motivation is that I see the results of working hard.

What are your hobbies outside of ballet?

I love languages, travelling and bakery.

What advice would you like to give to those who want to start ballet or have just started?

If you are constant and make effort on what you really like, you’re gonna see the results, you just have to be really really patient and keep the hard work. But the most important thing is to enjoy. I think dance has to be a passion.

Do you have a blog?

Yes. But due to my work and studies I can’t write that much, but on my facebook page I try to update everything about my favorite ballerinas and their videos. I usually write in English and Spanish.