The Definitive CoSchedule Review (2019)
Running a blog requires juggling a lot of different balls.
There are also tons of different tools out there you can use to help get things done, but then you’re juggling all those balls while bouncing back and forth between tools to get a single project done.
Not anymore, CoSchedule acts as your command center.
In this post, I’m going to introduce you to CoSchedule, why I stopped using it in 2016 and why I came back to it in 2018.
In this CoSchedule review, I’ll cover everything you need to know to decide if CoSchedule is right for you.
What is CoSchedule?
As I mentioned before, I view CoSchedule as a command center. I can see all of my blog posts, social media campaigns, and email marketing broadcasts all in one place. For multiple sites.
Yup, everything:
- WordPress posts (blog posts)
- You can also do Instagram and LinkedIn
- Email Marketing (Mailchimp, Active Campaign)
You can even see what has been posted to your social media from other tools, not that you would need to use any other tools because you definitely don’t with CoSchedule. But maybe if you are starting with CoSchedule and haven’t quite moved everything over yet, it’s really handy.
Check out this CoSchedule Review video for a quick overview of CoSchedule:
How I Learned About CoSchedule
Hard to remember three years after the fact, but I’m pretty sure I first heard about CoSchedule from Pat Flynn at Smart Passive Income.
I jumped on that train back in 2015 and really enjoyed using it to automatically build a promotion schedule for my new posts on social media.
But my site wasn’t really making any money and the $20/month price tag (back then it didn’t have ReQueue or some of the other features) seemed steep to me (I was wrong).
So I eventually canceled but CoSchedule majorly stepped up their game and I came back and I’m loving it now, more on why I came back to CoSchedule, below. Now, let’s continue the CoSchedule review…
How Does CoSchedule Work?
Once you have connected your websites and set up your social media accounts (I’ll walk you through that below) you can get going creating blog posts, social media campaigns, and email marketing campaigns.
Blog Posts
You can start your blog post in CoSchedule or on your website like usual and it will show up on CoSchedule. It’s up to you which process you like better. I tend to create in WordPress and use CoSchedule as my overall view for all my websites.
Check out the video below to see how I use CoSchedule to manage multiple WordPress sites and how to add a blog post.
Social Media Campaigns
Social Media campaigns are probably my favorite part of CoSchedule. It really allows you to do a lot, but let’s start with what social media channels it works with:
- Google + (does anyone use this?)
So pretty much all of the major social media channels work with CoSchedule. Though I wills say, Instagram is not automatic posting (at least not yet).
You can do standalone social media campaigns, like I’m doing for a virtual summit I put together, or in conjunction with some other piece of content like a blog post.
Generally, if I’m doing a standalone social media campaign, I’ll set it up in CoSchedule. If it’s in conjunction with a blog post I’ll just do it in WordPress when I’m doing the post. Check out the video below to see what I mean:
Email Marketing
Email marketing is a newer feature and because it doesn’t integrate with my email marketing service (Convertkit) I don’t use it for this purpose. But by integrating with popular EMS like MailChimp and ActiveCampaign it makes it that much easier for those users to keep track of everything in one place.
How I Use CoSchedule
As I’ve explained in the videos already, my main purpose for using CoSchedule is to keep track of everything I have going on with all three of the sites I run. It’s my command center.
It helps me keep track of when posts are publishing, where. It also helps me to automate promotion through social media templates I create for each site.
Even better is that I can set it to keep promoting evergreen posts with ReQueue which automatically and intelligently fills the gaps in your daily schedule. It will take into account your entire posting schedule and use Best Time scheduling to schedule your post making sure it’s getting the most eyes on it as possible.
Pros:
- Command center for all things blogging: Blog Posts, Social Media Promotion (including social media posts published by other tools), and Email Marketing
- Easy to stay organized
- Great automation tools particularly when using templates
- Easy customization
- Built in tools like headline optimizer to make sure you’re doing a good job
Cons:
- Price, while I think it pays for itself, this is not a free tool
- No automatic posting to Instagram
- The Social Media Message optimizer is not yet built into the social media campaign builder.
- Doesn’t integrate with Convertkit
What Does CoSchedule Cost?
While the CoSchedule website does provide some amazing free tools, like the Headline Analyzer, CoSchedule itself is not free. Though you can try it free for 14 days.
After your trial, it costs $49/month. Or if you pay annually $480, you’ll get a slight discount that comes to about $40/month when paying per year.
While it sounds like a lot, CoSchedule has a great referral program that can help you lower the costs. You can get 10% off for each friend you refer to CoSchedule.
How CoSchedule Can Save You Hours of Time Every Month
Using CoSchedule means you have everything in one place, you can at a glance see when things have been published or if there have been any issues publishing. You can also see how what has been published has been doing.
Yes, CoSchedule shows you analytics.
Not having to jump between a bunch of different tools and sites to see how everything is doing can save you a ton of time.
Thats on top of saving time by automating promotion with social media campaign templates, and ReQueue.
How to Get Started with CoSchedule If You Liked This CoSchedule Review:
- Sign up for the FREE Trial
- Connect your WordPress site to CoSchedule
- Connect your social media accounts to CoSchedule
- Create Social Media Campaign templates
- Start using CoSchedule for all your blogging needs!
Have questions about using CoSchedule or this CoSchedule Review? Let me know in the comments!
Related: 6 Budget-Friendly Social Media Tools
