In recent months, we've been on the hunt for a social media and blog scheduling program that can do it all (if such a unicorn even exists). Since CoSchedule claims to be the “#1 All-In-One Publishing Solution”, we spent the past month testing it and today we're sharing our thoughts about the program.
Our thoughts? We love CoSchedule and are making the switch. Keep reading to learn why... Share on X
FTC Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links, which means we’ll receive a small referral fee from purchases at no cost to you. You can read our affiliate policy here. Additionally, we will receive a discount on our monthly CoSchedule fees for publishing this review.
If you've read our blogging resources post, you know we typically use Hootsuite and Buffer to schedule our social media posts. While they're both fantastic tools, neither was the “all in one” magical solution we'd been craving.
The more involved we've gotten with blogging, the more we've discovered our need for a program that is user-friendly and easily integrates with WordPress and all of our many social media accounts.
Enter CoSchedule!
CoSchedule Review: Our Favorite Features
These are just a few of the things we discovered about CoSchedule that help make a blogger's life easier.
The Drag and Drop Calendar
It's awesome. We get a bird's eye view of our blog and social media posts in one simple calendar and can plan months of posts at one time. The drag and drop feature makes it unbelievably simple to move posts around — even after we've already scheduled them. LOVE IT!
The Awesome Headline Analyzer Tool
This might be our favorite feature, since we truly stink at creating titles. This feature ‘rates' headlines by scoring them on a scale from 1 – 100. If a headline is found lacking, CoSchedule provides tips to make it more effective. For example, we recently planned to use “Sophia Loren Inspired Makeup Tutorial” as a blog post title, so we typed it into the headline analyzer tool:
After clicking on the reddish/orange “Analyze Now” button, we received these not-so-impressive results:
Ouch, a score of 38?! Not impressed. We switched it up a little and tested out this new headline “New Video Alert: Sophia Loren Inspired Makeup Tutorial”. We thought it was pretty good, however…
…the results still weren't optimal. Boohoo. Did we mention we're not very good at writing headlines? We clicked to read CoSchedule's suggestions (should've done that after the first failed attempt, eh?), then tried one final time with this option:
VIDEO ALERT: How to do Sophia Loren Inspired Makeup
Let's see if that one is any good…
YES! We finally scored “in the green”, so that's the headline we selected for our post.
TIP: The headline analyzer is free and you can check it out on CoSchedule's site right here.
The Best Time Scheduling Feature
CoSchedule tells you the best time to publish your social media posts based on comprehensive analytics. No guesswork involved! LOVE IT!
We selected “best time” and CoSchedule determined that the best time was only one minute away! That means our audience was already surfing Instagram at the same time we were planning to post!
CoSchedule Google Chrome Extension
We're long-time Google Chrome users, so it's nice to have this extension. Whenever we read a post or article online that we want to share on our social media accounts, we can quickly grab it using the extension and easily schedule it to our calendar. Sorry Buffer, but you've got competition!
Robust Calendar Settings
CoSchedule allows users to customize timezones, colors, number of weeks that appear on the calendar, on which day to begin the week, and whether or not to see previous weeks and social messages. Because we're total calendar geeks, we love having these capabilities.
Re-Queue for Recycling Popular Posts
Re-promote popular posts regularly by adding them to Re-Queue, which fills gaps in your social calendar with those popular posts. It's like Meet Edgar, but not as expensive. (*It's an optional add-on with the Solo & Team Marketing plans, but you can write a review — like this one you're currently reading — to receive a 50% discount on your monthly CoSchedule fee.) LOVE IT!
Simple Social Media Integration
CoSchedule easily connects with the following types of social media:
- Facebook Profiles, Pages, & Groups
- Linkedin Profiles & Companies
- Tumblr
- Google+ Page
- Instagram (The CoSchedule app sends a notification when your post is ready to publish on Instagram and you'll have to click a button to publish it manually, since Instagram insists upon being a ‘real time' platform — even though it really isn't.)
How to Set Up CoSchedule
The set up is very easy. Simply hop on over to the CoSchedule website and sign up for FREE 14-day account.
PRO TIP: If you need additional time to review CoSchedule, they'll offer an extension at the end of your 14-day trial to further test it. That's how we were able to test it for a month!
Once your account is set up, CoSchedule will walk you through the steps to add the WordPress Plugin. It's as simple as adding any other plugin to WordPress – one or two clicks and you're done. They also provide a tutorial showing you how to use the plugin. They even offer FREE weekly live demo sessions with the CoSchedule Success Team to guide you through the process .
Basically, you get all the hand-holding you need as you set it up — if you're into that sort of thing. Personally, we're VERY into that sort of thing, and we love having easy access to assistance with anything technology-related.
Next, Link Your Social Media Accounts
This step is also simple. Click on the social media accounts in your CoSchedule dashboard that you want to connect, then allow the program access to those accounts. Easy peasy.
CoSchedule Promotional Video
For a quick overview of CoSchedule's features, here's their promo video on Vimeo.
CoSchedule overview from Garrett Moon on Vimeo
We hope this CoSchedule review has been helpful. Remember, if you try the program out for FREE and then write your own review, you'll receive 50% off your subscription for an entire year! Give CoSchedule a 14-day free trial here. For more blogging help, check out our other favorite tools and resources for newbie and advanced bloggers.
As always, let us know in the comments if you have any questions at all.
