Falling in Love with CoSchedule and The BEST Business Investment I’ve Made In a Long Time WPCP: 084
If you haven’t heard of CoSchedule, let me give you a little rundown of what it is and why I continue to fall in love with it a little more EVERY single day.
CoSchedule is to content marketing what peanut butter is to chocolate (yes, Reeses is my favorite candy bar and I love me some peanut butter & chocolate ice cream).
But I know, that’s not really telling you what it is, right?
I signed up for CoSchedule immediately when it first came out but didn’t really give it the attention it deserved. After having worked with a social media person for a year and using another tool (Edgar, which was O.K., but truthfully I didn’t see the ROI for it. You can create a library of categories and a schedule, but CoSchedule does SO much more) and not seeing enough ‘results’, I went back to CoSchedule and started consuming all of their training and content (their blog is FABULOUS!).
Once I decided to ‘overhaul the WordPress Chick’ site and my content strategy I knew that I would need a solid editorial plan as well as a better promotional schedule. Which is where CoSchedule sort of ‘starts’ (because again, it does WAY more than provide you with a simple editorial calendar). Â First, here’s a brief look at what CoSchedule does, then I’ll get into each element a little deeper:
- Editorial Calendar
- Social Media marketing tool
- Google Analytics tracking
- Headline Analyzer
- Bit.ly integration
- Evernote integration
- Google Docs
- Chrome ExtensionÂ
I’m in the process of creating a complete CoSchedule tutorial & review post, so I won’t go into every single detail in this post but using this tool has been a game-changer for me and I think it will be for you too.
I had made numerous attempts in the past to use an editorial calendar but without having a solid content strategy in place (or working on one), it just took up space on my site. All of that changed when I drank the content marketing Kool-Aid. Kid you not, it’s become such an obsession of mine that I’m seriously considering taking a speed-reading class or course so I can consume more content.
O.K., not really, but you get my point.
Like I mentioned above, I originally went back to CoSchedule for the social media calendar aspect. When I started using it again I simply added my social media person as a user to my site and she went in and scheduled all the content to be shared in my dashboard (which was also great because I could see exactly what she was doing. Not that I couldn’t before or that I didn’t trust her, but since I was logging into my dashboard every day I could see what was being scheduled without having to log into a separate site).
After using it for social media for a while I started diving a little deeper into the editorial calendar, headline analyzer (which is probably one of my MOST favorite online tools EVER) and the data within the CoSchedule web app (btw, did you know you can use CoSchedule without WordPress? Although my guess is if you’re reading this or listening to this podcast you’re a WordPress user).
What CoSchedule has done for me that I DIDN’T expect…
Helped me create a content marketing plan that has made content fun, engaging, and strategic (and yes, even the strategic part is FUN).
The Best Business Investment I’ve Made In A Long Time
I’ve mentioned this in a recent podcast episode, but since I’m deeper in the process of working through this I really wanted to give you an update.
If you’re new to what I’m talking about, I’m referring to my recent decision to hire Jason Hornung & the Jason Hornung Agency to help me launch a new campaign on Facebook for my podcast offer (I go into a little more detail on that in the episode, but this is really more about my decision to hire Jason and his team, what the process has been like and why I’m starting the “Jason Hornung Fan Club”.. kidding. Maybe).
As your business grows and you start scaling what you’re doing you need to partner with the right people to help you grow. I’ve done some Facebook advertising and have had some success…I’ve also had horrible results, which is why I went looking for help. From the moment I first talked to Jason (for a podcast interview, which you’re going to get next week) I knew in my gut, I wanted to work with him. I had already heard from a client who had worked with Jason that they were getting amazing results and that he was a genius (he’s also an amazingly nice person). After the podcast interview we took the conversation further, he went into more detail about what they did for you and how the program worked.
I was impressed before I even made my decision.
It was the first business decision I’ve made in a LONG time where there were ZERO doubts. I had no feelings of “should I, shouldn’t I”… which I’m sure you’re familiar with when you’re contemplating making an investment in your business (and it doesn’t matter what the dollar amount is, if it’s significant to YOU that’s all that matters). Besides the money, there’s always that niggly little thought of “what if this doesn’t pan out? What if I spend all this money and I’m still in exactly the same spot?”
Never had those doubts with Jason.
Not once.
Why?
Because EVERYTHING they do is based on DATA!!!
Which as you know is one of my least favorite things to track and manage, but I do know how vitally important it is. And I made a commitment to myself that everything I do this year (and moving forward) was going to be based on strategic business decisions (O.K., not everything… but you know what I mean. If I’m putting money out for something for my business I want to see a return on it… whether it’s time, money, traffic, etc.).
I’m heading out to Wisconsin next week to launch this campaign live with Jason and his team. I am BEYOND excited. The feedback, engagement, and support I’ve received is without a doubt the best experience I’ve had online to DATE with a program or business investment.
Be sure to listen to the full interview to hear why I feel so good about this decision.
And tune in next week for my interview with Jason Hornung himself. 🙂
