The One Tool I Use to Organize My Blog Content Calendar

I’ve been blogging here at House by the Bay for five years now. Oh my – five years? I can’t believe it’s been that LONG! Blogger is just one of the hats I wear, and every once and while I like to share the things that make my life as a blogger easier. Like an organized content calendar.

please note, this post contains affiliate links, that means if you decide to subscribe to the tool I’m writing about I will make a commission at no additional cost to you.

Fair warning, this is going to be one of those posts. If you’re really not interested in learning how I organize all my blog & social media posts maybe check out this Pinterest board I created while I daydream about a better home office.

Still with me? Excellent. 

So, how do I organize my blog posts and social media posts? 

One tool – CoSchedule. 

Okay, so what the heck is CoSchedule?

Well, it’s a little bit of everything – a content calendar, a social media scheduler and an analytics tool, to name a few.

But, before we get into all that let me take a brief moment to explain what my OLD process used to be when creating blog posts: 

1. Think about some posts I want to do and write them down in a notebook somewhere. Usually, forget which notebook.
2. Sit down and decide that I really should share something on the blog.
3. Stare blankly at my computer trying to decide what to write about.
4. Eventually, write something and publish it.
5. Maybe remember to share a link on twitter, maybe Facebook. Rarely both.

So, how does CoSchedule help? A few years ago I realized I needed a change. I wanted to take my blog more seriously and get better at posting more consistently (I’m still working on that bit, to be honest).

Now I’m a lot more organized. I start by thinking about the posts I want to publish and plotting them out in my CoSchedule calendar.

Then, CoSchedule automatically creates an empty blog post for me in WordPress as a draft.

I usually write my blog posts in Google Drive and then, when they’re ready, paste them into the draft in WordPress. I use the CoSchedule plugin to draft all the social media messages for that post right in WordPress.

But, when to schedule the posts? There’s a solution for that too – Social Templates. I’ve created my own template of social media posts that go to Instagram, Facebook & Twitter over the 30 days following my publish date. CoSchedule will also pick the best time to send your posts if you want it to.

Now, you still have to actually WRITE the posts (it’s not going to do ALL the work for you) but you can set up “helpers” in your templates like the post title and permalink.

In addition to planning out my blog posts (and associated social media posts) I also use CoSchedule to map out any additional social media posts I want to share – you know, gotta make sure I don’t forget International Deviled Egg Day (November 2, btw).

I’ve been using CoSchedule as my content calendar for three years and I still feel like I’m only scratching the surface of what this tool can do. In addition to managing blog and social media posts, it can also be used to schedule tasks and plan out email campaigns (although it doesn’t connect directly to your email service).

There is also a new feature, ReQueue, which I haven’t had a chance to set up yet. It lets you add your most popular posts to a queue and then automatically shares them out at the best times.

Well that sounds cool right – but how do I know which my best posts are?

Analytics my friend, analytics. 

I can see which posts I’ve sent have been most popular, and can also get insights into my best days and times to post on each network.

If you’re also a blogger, or you’re thinking of starting a blog, I do highly recommend CoSchedule. While it’s not the cheapest tool available ($40/month) I’ve found it is totally unique and completely essential to my business.

If you’re thinking it might be useful for YOUR business, they do offer a 2-week free trial to let you get completely addicted I mean, try it out.