How to Better Streamline Your Social Media Management

if you are a small business entrepreneur like me chances are you are still struggling to streamline different aspects of social media scheduling. While juggling with various business related tasks and most of all some or another unforeseen task waiting to disturb the plan that you have in mind for the day . I can totally understand that how frustrating it can become to manage social media.

I sometimes wished and hoped that I had grown enough to hire a VA who is hired JUST to handle my social media accounts for me . I totally get it , while trying to grow our business we miss on the great returns social media can bring in  if handled methodically and regularly.

Are you a small biz owner hoping that you could hire a VA to manage your social media for you , but cant afford at the moment. I have good news for you , You have a VA for your social media tasks !! err maybe not for free but for a wonderfully manageable cost !. I am talking about my recent new love , a social media and your blog management tool. CoSchedule is an all-in-one marketing calendar that brings your content and social media in the same place. It’s your unified marketing calendar of record!

Some of the key features of CoSchedule are

  • Drag-And-Drop Marketing Calendar

  • Easy Social Media Scheduling

  • Easy Workflow Management For Your Marketing Team

  • Easily Re-Schedule Old Blog Content

  • Works Great With WordPress

  • Manage Google Docs Content

  • Manage Evernote Content

  • Convert Evernote & Google Docs Content To WordPress

  • Lot’s Of Intergrations That Will Simplify Your Life

Lets get a bit more detailed overview of these features.

Drag-And-Drop Marketing Calendar

Yes it is possible ! indeed , with CoSchedule drag and drop feature you can simply re-arrange your marketing calendar. Move around your scheduled posts and the full social media posts control.

CoSchedule-Calendar

CoSchedule-Calendar

Easy Social Media Scheduling

The best thing about CoSchedule is that as you can manage all of your content using drag-and-drop simplicity. Things get really yummy when you can schedule upto the coming month or say a year! , keep those posts evergreen. Plan them out for the full month and ahead and just sit back and see them rolling at designated times. Good news is there is no limit to number of posts .

In the image below you can see that how it is easy for me to even get an overview of the full social media schedule. You can also assign tasks for your posts .

CoSchedule Social Queue How to Better Streamline Your Social Media Management

Easy Workflow Management For Your Marketing Team

Now I dont have a marketing team and that is why I am loving the ability of this tool , but if still however you decide to handover the task to someone else then the whole management process becomes so easy. You can assign tasks from inside CoSchedule and then see which one of your team member is where at his / her tasks.

CoSchedule UserDashboard How to Better Streamline Your Social Media Management

Easily Re-Schedule Old Blog Content Works Great With WordPress.

And then while you are working on a new post or you want to re-schedule old content you can easily see how well the posts have performed or posts that need to be shared. That my friend is a priceless tool when it comes to creating evergreen content.

With this amazing WordPress plugin, you can save a ton of time and grow your traffic by scheduling social media promotion right from WordPress while you blog! CoSchedule is the the marketing calendar that WordPress has been missing.

CoSchedule WordPressEditPost How to Better Streamline Your Social Media Management

Manage Google Docs/Evernote Content

if you are like me , who hates to write inside wordpress ? this clever tool can connect seamlessly to your Google Docs or Evernote content and convert it to your wordpress post.

CoSchedule integrates with WordPress, Evernote, Google Docs, Google Analytics and major social media tools like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Buffer, and even Google+ Pages.

[Tweet “Coschedule will simply simplify your blogging and #smallbusiness life”]

below is an overview walkthrough shared by CoSchedule if you are interested in learning about it more then check this out. Oh ! and if you click through any of my links you will get 14days trial.

Would you like to streamline your Social Media Management? Check out CoSchedule . If this tool can work for me it will work for you too 🙂 . Which tools do you use and recommend I would love to know share in comments below.

3 Steps to Focus and get more done

Our brain is merely a muscle that we strengthen to have more things done in a day. It is entirely upto you to sharpen its powers in the right direction and as a result get more done in a day.
and the good news is that you really do not need any training from outside to unlock the potentials of the brain to be more productive. You do not need some expensive help to unlock its power.
There are some simple exercises my friend that you can start right now and today to get the most out of your day. Be more creative and as a result be more creative.
My biggest challenge had been to concentrate not on million tasks at hand but to do one bit at a time.
Although my Goal planner workbook did help me towards streamlining my project planning . But these simple exercises help a lot.

So my creative challenge for you today is to channelize your brain to its creative potential and as a restult get more stuff done.

This post will show you how to…

  • 1 – Explain a simple mediation exercise to begin your day with
  • 2- Keep track of your progress and help you commit yourself to a project and project tasks.
  • 3- Help you create a list of tasks that will help you work towards your bigger goal.
  • 4- Help you find the perfect tool to track your project tasks.

lets jump in and see what you can do TODAY to get more creative focus.

1- Mediate

Meditation is an approach to training the mind, similar to the way that fitness is an approach to training the body.different meditative practices require different mental skills.he easiest way to begin meditating is by focusing on the breath — an example of one of the most common approaches to meditation: concentration.

In a concentrative mediation you need to focus on one single point. This single point can be watching the breath , repeating a mantra , listening to a repetitive gong or counting beads. In this way of mediation you just need to refocus on the way you are mediating and come back to it again and again , caliming everything else down.

A very simple mediation exercise that you can do right away is just to close your eyes. Take deep breaths .
Breathe in and breathe out and concentrate and just try to listen to your own heartbeat and your own breathing sound. Avoid listening to any of the surrounding sounds.
Slowly relax your muscles and take your brain to a place which is calm and you are the most happy at.

The one thing that you can do today is to commit to yourself that you will be mediating everyday for a few minutes. How this helps is that sometimes we are stuck in everyday mayhem and a few of the tasks just stick to our part of the brain that is taking actions.

Mediation will help you find the clarity about which tasks requires more attention and which tasks you can leave  for later.

In the workbook i have a added a simple tracker that you can just tick mark everyday so you can keep a track of it and dont forget to give your mind a little break.

2-Work on a to-do list

As simple as it might sound having a to-do list and a proper one is a task in itself. For years i wandered the internet looking for the perfect to-do list. I pinned a lot to many to-do lists and printables. I printed too many , i worked on too many until it dawned to me that every person has his/her own way of doing things and you cant really follow someone else’s printable to-do list . But you must have a system that helps get the tasks done efficiently that resonates to your own personality.

I found this system in form of my goal planner which works for me fine. Basically just follow these simple steps to get things done following a to-do list.

1-Write down your big focus and give it a logical date
2-Break it into three steps
3-Break each step into tasks.
4-Prioritize tasks and write them down with dates.
5-These smaller tasks will become your weekly goals .
6-These weekly goals are your achievable to-do lists.

Start writing them down and marking them off as you go forward towards your big focus.

3- Use tools to find your focus.

As crazy it might sound but sometimes you do have to return to the technology to find a focus to really stay away from the unfocus that it brings .

Confusing? yeah it is ! but really here are a few tools that you can find online which can crazy help in finding your focus.

  1. Use Focus at will 
  2. Mindmeister  to laydown your plan of action
  3. Trello to manage your tasks
  4. Evernote to save links for reading later
  5. Get an online app to track your block of times.
  6. Mute your gmail with inbox pause

DOWNLOAD FIND YOUR FOCUS WORKBOOK

BONUS TIP To get more done:

use a Start – Stop – Continue method every now and then
here is how you do it

  • Stop: What am i doing that slows down my creative process?
  • Start: What can I Start doing that would increase my creative outcome?
  • Continue: What should I Continue doing that is bringing me returns.

 

Keeping track of your daily tasks bit by bit helps you work towards your ultimate goal . The most important thing is to focus of one thing at a time. If you are unable to focus on a single task today you wont be able to move towards your ultimate goal. The trick is to overlook the overwhelm and focus on a bit at a time.

This works for each and every aspect of our lives. For all the roles that we play so you might need to focus on one Role of yourself at a time. Here is the final breakdown.

Focus on one of your roles at a time. Use the worksheet to write down the big focus for that particular “you” . write down your weekly then daily tasks . Repeat for all the roles that you play and then eventually refer to all these roles and find a clarity of what needs to be done today.

Happy finding your focus friends!

Got questions? Want to share an idea? Leave a comment down below!