How I Set Up My Social Media Sharing Calendar Using CoSchedule //Blogging Tech Tips

Okay, so I know it’s been ages since I had a tech tips post on here. Like a March of 2015, long time ago. For the first while, it was because I had shared all my favorite tips with you, and after that it was because I had started Powersful Studios, my web design company, so life got suddenly super busy! I’ve had quite a few ideas come up in the past year though, especially as I’ve worked with many clients this past year to solve their biggest WordPress troubles, so I figured it was about time I pop back over for my tech tips series and answer some more common blogging tech questions!

Disclosure: this post contains affiliate links for CoSchedule. This means that if you choose to sign up with them using my link, I will earn a credit. I only recommend products & services that I use and love myself, so I know you’ll be in good hands.

CoSchedule is one of the top plugins that I recommend for bloggers and small business owners. One of my last Tech Tips posts was actually about how much CoSchedule drastically helped my blog to grow. (Be sure and check out that post if you’re not familiar with CoSchedule) In fact, besides managing my Instagram account manually and occasionally participating in a social sharing group on FB, I have done almost no other social media sharing for my blog apart from using CoSchedule, and my blog traffic has just been growing and growing. By January of this year, my weekly traffic had actually increased 500% from what it was in January of 2015! And I attribute most of that to creating consistent, quality content, and utilizing CoSchedule to help me with my editorial content and social media shares. (And there’s probably a little bit of luck and a mini-viral post or two in there as well.) So enough of the raving about CoSchedule. (But seriously, I love it. And they didn’t ask me to write this post.)

Want to know the first thing everyone always asks me after they sign up for the 14 day trial? “I love this! But how many times should I share my new content using CoSchedule?” Well, that’s an excellent question! I’ve recieved this question so many times that I actually created an email template I could use to reply to them. But I realized the other day that I should share it as a blog post here so everyone, not just my clients, can benefit from it!  

My Social Sharing Queue for Each Post

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Here’s what I set up in my CoSchedule social sharing queue before I publish each post. I mix it up between sharing images and links because social media platforms tend to give different reach to each type of share. 

Facebook and G+ (I normally send the same post to both)

• Day of (image)
• Week later (link)
• 1-2 months later
• A few weeks before any holidays that recipe or post is good for
• 6 months later
• ~1 year later

Twitter

• 3x day of (image, link, image)
• 1-2 times day after 
• 2-3 random weekend days throughout the next couple months (I get good Twitter engagement on weekends for recipes.)
• a couple tweets at 6 months
• 3-4 tweets around 12 months

Pinterest

• day of to my blog board
• week later to the appropriate category board (main, sides, vegetarian, holiday etc)
• Schedule pins to group boards for next 6 months

Instagram (You can’t schedule to Instagram via coschedule, but I note it on my CS editorial calendar to help me keep track)

• day of (evening)
• a few days later (different image if I have it)
• for any “national X food day” it might apply for
• a #tbt near a holiday it might apply for
• ~1 year later

 

Don’t have a CoSchedule plan yet? Grab your free 14 day trial of CoSchedule here!

Additional notes: 

I currently use the “Solo Standard” plan with CoSchedule because it’s the most affordable at $15/month. (The price can be reduced a bit by earning referrals, but I paid full price for my first 6 months, so I definitely think it’s worth it at full price.) That plan comes with up to 5 social profiles and a handy dandy browser plugin for scheduling shares from other bloggers while you’re on their blogs. The next plan level up ($30/month) comes with the ability to create social sharing templates, so you could build out the template I list above (or use one of their pre-made templates) and have it pretty much set up all your social shares for you based on your template. I used a free trial to check out templates and as soon as I can afford to upgrade my plan, I’m definitely going to!

The CoSchedule blog has a ton of awesome articles covering social media, content, and marketing. Even if you don’t use their service, you can learn a ton from their blog and email list, so check it out.   

In addition to scheduling social shares with CoSchedule, I use IFTTT.com (another favorite service!) to pull my IG images to my FB and my twitter with captions, so I add to my social media stream that way as well with content that I’m already creating and sharing.

Since many of my recipes are based around seasonal happenings and ingredients, it makes sense to me to re-share them a year or so out to catch that season again.

I also normally publish new posts on Mondays, so I schedule brand new content shares for Mon & Tues and then schedule my re-shares of content for later in the week so I have spread out content. I love using the CoSchedule “best time” feature so I don’t have to pick an exact time.

 

I’d love to hear how you use CoSchedule! Share your best tips in the comments below so we can all learn from each other.