by Yoon Cannon | Business Growth Tips Blog, Success Mindset
UPDATED! … Ever Feel Like Giving Up in Your Business?
If you’ve been trying to grow your business alone, discouragement can easily knock you off your feet and make you question whether you should be giving up on your business — wondering whether achieving your dream is even possible.
If you’re feeling this fear in your business you are not alone. I have felt your pain and so have thousands of other now successful entrepreneurs.
The good news is you are taking a step in the right direction just by reading this blog and seeking answers.
Here are 5 tips that will help you get up when you feel like giving up. Implement these tips to help you get your “A-game” on.
1. Expect to struggle with challenges.
Challenges are a part of life … and it’s also a part of growing your business.
A wise person taught me a long time ago, “a person’s reaction is based on their expectation.”
Being exposed to so many “overnight” success stories on social media it is no wonder how any normal person might feel like a ‘failure’ if you are going through a rough time in your business.
Well, I rarely find those sound bytes on social media revealing the failures and hard times they had to overcome in order to get to the success they are today.
If you’ve been an email subscriber of mine, you probably already know about some of the high points in my background like, hitting my first Million Dollar milestone … doubling my business 11 times over my 26 year entrepreneur career … starting, turn-keying and selling 3 businesses, etc.
But, you may not know about some of the low points and struggles I went through along the way, when I was …
- Disheartened at the realization I could have made more money flipping burgers than what I netted in Q1 my first year of business back in 1992 … (I felt so inadequate!) 😭
- Rejected being turned down for my first round of funding for my 2nd business … (blow to my ego!) 😓
- Struggling to make payroll some months … (sweating bullets!) 😨
- Dumbfounded at the damage it cost me from not firing a key employee when I should have – to the tune of quarter of a million dollars (Ouch!) 😖
- Overwhelmed having to find 20 new hires to replace 20 under performing sales people … (Ugh! Felt like I got the ‘Go back to Start’ card in Monopoly) 😞
- Blindsided being sued for pregnancy discrimination by a new employee 😱 — (Wow! never imagined that could happen to me as a working mother of 3 children myself)
- Ok, I could go on and on … but I hope you get the point …
The point is … life is not easy, right?
When you expect growing a business to be easy, then challenges will take you by surprise. Don’t let obstacles knock the wind out of you and make you dwell on negative thinking.
As Vince Lombardi famously said, “it’s not whether you get knocked down; it’s whether you get up.”
I’ve learned, though it’s so much faster and easier to get up from setbacks when you have other people to help you. That’s why it’s important to …
2. Connect with like-minded entrepreneurs.
It’s pretty hard to encourage yourself when you’re in the midst of massive anxiety and frustration.
First, you’ve got to make a decision to get out of solitary confinement and not operate your business like an island.
Don’t try to climb out of your discouragement alone.
- Find a mastermind group or an advisory group where you get together regularly with like minded entrepreneurs to work ON your business.
- Join a local networking group where you can build relationships with other business owners and entrepreneurs.
- Reach out to a colleague and ask them to be your accountability partner. (Just don’t choose someone who is in the same place of contemplating giving up in their business right now).
3. Reconnect to your “WHY”.
I find that people think most about quitting and giving up when their business is not making enough money (you need to attract more clients) or the business just isn’t fun anymore (you need to develop high performing people you like being around).
A business won’t survive long if you’re just in it for the money. Yes, it must make money in order to thrive as a business, but there has to be a much greater meaning that drives you in your business.
[bctt tweet=”A greater purpose fuels passion that mere setbacks can not extinguish.” username=”yooncannon”]
The problem is pursuing money is not a meaningful purpose. We all need to make a living, but I believe God created each of us on purpose and for a greater purpose.
What was the difference you set out to make in people’s lives through your business?
It doesn’t matter how unglamorous you might think your profession is. Even a house painting business can make a powerful impact when it’s run as a purpose driven business.
When business is slow it’s easy to sink into self pity and start to question whether it’s time to throw in the towel. Instead, shift your focus off yourself and onto others.
Reconnect with your purpose and focus on the impact you want to make through your business.
[bctt tweet=”“Our greatest fear in life should not be failure, but succeeding at things that don’t really matter in life.” ~ Francis Chan” username=”yooncannon”]
4. Find an experienced guide.
Discouragement can feel as insurmountable as climbing Mount Everest when you’re not supported by an experienced guide. Let me give you a visual:
That’s me struggling to scale this rock. But, I would not have even gotten that far up if I didn’t have my brother belaying me from the ground.
Having him belay me protected me from getting hurt when I did fall. And, he knew how to belay me so I didn’t fall very far.
He also took me on walls he has scaled before. So, he could guide me on what steps I should take that was within my physical reach.
He didn’t guide me in the same sequence he gave my son, who could take a different path getting to the top since he is 5 inches taller than me and has far greater upper body strength than I do.
If I were free climbing I would certainly give up after my first fall. But, I would never attempt to go free climbing by myself. I know my threshold for pain and at my age, I would not risk breaking any bones.
It’s the same in your business. You can’t afford making costly mistakes. Hiring an experienced guide is worth every penny!
5. Evaluate your equipment.
When rock climbing you have to have the proper equipment to have a successful climb. The wrong shoes will make every step hiking up the mountain slippery and dangerous. A clothing line rope does not qualify as proper equipment. You may be able to hang clothes with it, but you wouldn’t depend on a clothing line rope to hold you from falling off a cliff.
If business is slow, you want to evaluate what equipment are you using in your marketing toolbox.
Don’t overlook the importance of having the right marketing tools. You can watch your sales climb much faster if you use the right tool for the right job.
These are some of the critical tech tools every business should be equipped with.
- effective lead generation magnet(s)
- a lead capture landing page
- a lead generation website
- email marketing/autoresponder tool
- traffic generation tools like social media
BONUS TIP #1. Shift your focus from seeing “problems” to seeing “opportunities”
If you keep focusing on your problem that your business is not making enough money right now, all you get is worry, anxiety and ulcers. The most effective way I know how to shift from focusing on the problem into seeing opportunities is by measuring your marketing metrics.
This is one of the most overlooked steps. But, measuring your marketing is like getting an instant X-ray of what is causing the problem.
Let me know if you want me to cover this topic in more detail in future blog posts, (just tell me in the comment box below) but let’s take one specific marketing tactic like your website. The numbers will tell you what opportunities to focus on.
Example:
# of new visits to your site = 1,000
# of subscribers = 5
# bounce rate = 90%
# average time spent on site = 4 seconds
average # of pages spent on site = 7
Can you see what opportunities the business with this above example should focus on?
If this is an area you are screaming for more help interpreting in your business right now you can sign up for a complimentary marketing assessment here.
BONUS TIP #2. Don’t worry about the storm. Worry about having a good anchor.
Falling sales numbers might be the storm in your business. Having a good anchor will keep you from worrying about it. When I am rock climbing I don’t worry about falling because I know I am anchored to my belayer who also happens to be my older brother.
Not only is he my safety net; he’s also my guide coaching me through what my next steps should be. Because my nose is so close to the rock, it can be hard to see what step I should take next.
My belayer can see the bigger picture from where he is standing. Plus, he’s climbed the rock before, so he knows first hand the pitfalls and the easiest path to reach the top.
Who is belaying you in your business? Who is your safety net? Who is guiding your next steps when your nose is too close to see those opportunities?
Question: What do you do when you feel like giving up? Share your tips and questions below.
© Copyright 2018
by Managing Editor Yoon Cannon | Marketing and Sales Blog Posts
High Ticket Sales Secrets ~
Selling high ticket products and services is a great way to speed your sales growth, but what do you do when your prospects or clients start to quibble your price?
Answer— you show them the true value of what you’re offering instead.
If your prospects are telling you they like your product or service, but that it’s too expensive, you probably haven’t sufficiently communicated the value of what you’re offering.
Here are nine different ways to help you 10X the value of your services or products, so that 100% of the right prospects buy.
Remember — price isn’t the only thing affecting a purchase decision.
1. Leverage the false economy principle.
The old adage of ‘you buy cheap, you buy twice’ can be a powerful one.
Promoting the quality of what you offer is a viable way of justifying charging higher than your competitors. And the same goes for services or software — the better the build, the less customers will need to spend on support and fixing issues.
You get what you pay for — and that holds true across the board, from selling million dollar Senior Living communities to selling $100,00 Elite coaching-mastermind groups.
When you’re selling high ticket products, highlight the longevity 
and the reliability of your product — “You can buy it for less elsewhere which might seem cheaper in the short run, but it ends up being most expensive in the long run because you’ll have to replace it over and over again.”
If you’re selling high end services, highlight the high return on investment of what you’re offering — “Let me show you how we get you results and even 10X the ROI.” Now how’s that for a powerful sales statement?
2. Win them with awesome ‘gotta-have’ features.
Another way to convince prospects is to highlight the features they get with you that they can’t get anywhere else. It’s a simple, yet effective way to communicate value in a way that’s easy to understand.
This comparison guide from Pipedrive is a really comprehensive (and honest) look at CRM features:
By pitting Pipedrive’s features against that of its major competitors (Salesforce and Zoho), they are letting prospects decide for themselves what service they need based on the essential features.
Feature-led selling is a great way to get someone to buy, especially if they have a non-negotiable feature they can get from you that they can’t get from anyone else!
Speak to your loyal customers and users and ask them what cool feature or service you could add that would transform their experience with you.
It may give you an idea of how to 10X your value. Keep constantly updating and renewing your product and service offering to ensure that you are are the best and most complete offering on the market.
3. Highlight experiential value.
Is there something that you can offer that no one else does right now? Have you got any features in development that are going to change the game? Are you going above and beyond and offering people a VIP customer experience?
This is all about showing your customers value by highlighting your uniqueness, as well as making a big deal about your stellar customer experience.
Speed of delivery – In some cases, customers are often willing to pay more if they can have the product sooner. Just think about the popularity of Amazon Prime — people will actually pay a monthly fee just to get their products quicker when they need them. Same goes for services — the ability to get started on a cleaning or service contract sooner can be worth its weight in gold for busy customers.
Personalization — People love products that they can customize and call their own — always offer this as an option if you can. Dropshipping and print-on-demand shipping models are a cost-effective way of offering mass personalization options and variants to your customers, without the need for a bespoke workshop.
For someone selling services, a bespoke contract might be a way to fulfill this same need — or just invest in great customer service and email marketing to personalize their interactions with you and your brand.
Emails can be a great way to remind people they are due another visit to you, or even wish them happy birthday from you and your team!
4. Harness social status.
In Europe where the roads are more narrow and the gas is more expensive, they love small city cars. Car brands Skoda, SEAT, and Audi are all owned by Volkswagen and many of their cars share the same components. And yet, the small Audis sell at a higher price due to the perceived value and status of having those four rings on the hood.
Why?
Social status — people love to buy into products and services that make them look & feel good in front of other people.
This is where you want to embrace the ‘soft sell’ and display customer reviews in prominent positions both offline and online.
You will also want to use language in your sales literature that sets you up as the premium or ‘go to’ supplier in your area.
Highlighting other big hitters or locally respected people and brands who have come to you already is a great way to increase your social credibility.
5. Let your customers sell you for you.
Go one up on reviews: in-depth case studies and testimonials are another great way of bringing your value or the value of your products to life. Invest in some user-generated content to put sales messages into the hands of your customers.
Why not shoot a customer happiness video to showcase your biggest advocates?
Platforms such as Feefo and Trust Pilot are reasonably easy to implement on websites and provide an easy to understand rating system for customers. Creating a community of happy customers will help with social proof, but you will also need to address your branded literature to ensure an aura of quality and value pervades your brand. Some standout customer quotes and stories should be your go-to value propositions when talking to an unsure prospect.
6. Tell a story.
[bctt tweet=”Features and benefits appeal to logic. Storytelling appeals to emotions.” username=”yooncannon”]
Spend time looking at how luxury brands market and sell their products — they often fall back on age-old techniques like storytelling to help communicate the social status of their brand.
Keep this in mind when creating sales literature like brochures, flyers, leaflets, and landing pages.
Sometimes appealing to people’s imagination and sense of wonder works better than being practical about it. (It’s why beauty salons and spas invest so much time and money in creating an ‘out of this world’ impression and experience).
[bctt tweet=”A good story transforms your brand message from ‘boiled chicken’ to going viral. ” username=”yooncannon”]
Storytelling isn’t just for eCommerce. It also catapults service based business like agencies, brokers, consulting firms, law firms – even home builders and more.
What is your story? What emotional felt need does it tap into your customers?
[bctt tweet=”“Effective storytelling ignites a revolution behind your brand.”” username=”yooncannon”]
7. Pile on the prestige.
People love buying into history and provenance. Make a big deal about your origins, and always highlight the human story behind your materials, suppliers, and vision.
For service-led businesses …
Highlight the prestige of your education or experience, or mention any significant awards and mentors who’ve helped you along the way. Showing that you’ve ‘been in the game’ for awhile can help convince people you are a serious contender.
8. Give value to the community.
Ethical buying is important to vast swathes of the population — tap into ethical consumer trends by communicating your ethical credentials during the sales pipeline. Encouraging your customers to pay more for a good cause e.g. responsibly sourced materials or responsible labor practices is a great sales tactic when price rears its head.
Even service businesses can leverage this strategy by having an awesome corporate social responsibility program, or using ethical supplies and suppliers.
Seek out partnerships with charitable organizations and certified bodies to add legitimacy to the causes you support. It’s not cool to use causes as a cheap way of getting more sales — you need to actually be committed and engaged.
9. Talk & write like you mean it.
Producing content to show you’ve got your finger on the pulse will help demonstrate the value in buying from you. People are much more likely to buy from suppliers and service providers who they follow and engage with on social media.
Ensure that you are ready to engage with customers across a diverse range of channels, whether they choose to call or tweet you.
You can show your customers you understand and care about the same things they do. So if for example you’re selling men’s watches, consider writing some content around men’s lifestyle and fashion to show you connect with your audience in a meaningful way.
Part of connecting with your audience is using an appropriate tone of voice and a brand that resonates with that audience. Sometimes, a stand-out content or ad campaign can grab the attention of customers and have them buy into you as a business. So, there you have it! Now be sure to take the time to implement these 9 steps into your business … OR
If you’d rather speed the process, you can get my help with a
HIGH TICKET SELLING QUICK START LASER COACHING Session, so you can position your high ticket offer to truly make it irresistible!
LIMITED TIME OFFER for a ONE TIME SESSION. Grab it while you can!
💬 QUESTION: What is one question about high ticket selling we didn’t cover in this article? Share your comments below:
Contributing Writer, Victoria Greene is a branding consultant and freelance writer. On her blog, VictoriaEcommerce, she shares tips on e-commerce and how companies can improve the way they represent their brand. She is passionate about using her experience to help brands improve their reach.
by Yoon Cannon | General, Business Growth Tips Blog
Whether you need funding for a new office space in London or the money to launch a new marketing campaign, there are a number of resources such as UK small business grants that provide small businesses with the capital they need to succeed.
Here, The Brew rounds up some of the best grants and funding options that will help your small business to scale up.
While some companies can easily survive with minimal investment when starting out, others need to deal with immediate and necessary expenditures. That’s why The Brew have partnered with smallbusiness.co.uk to offer £5,000 every month to the brightest UK businesses in a free-to-enter competition.
If your business has a turnover between £50,000 and £500,000, then you’re eligible to enter – and the entering is simple and user-friendly, to avoid businesses having to jump through the usual multiple, complex application hoops.
Simply include as much information as possible about your successes so far and why you deserve to win, and your application will be considered by a panel of successful entrepreneurs and business leaders – including The Brew’s very own Andrew Clough.
Replacing the old Smart award programme which was scrapped by the government last year, Innovate UK now runs funding competitions offering grants to businesses working on innovative new technologies.
The programme has competitions open to businesses and organisations of all sizes and from all corners of the technology sector, but some are open exclusively to SMEs. Recipients of Innovate UK grants have seen higher employment and turnover and a better success rate than comparable businesses without the same funding.
The full list of open competitions can be found on the Innovate UK website.
Supporting research and innovation all over Europe, this massive EU fund has a dedicated SME Instrument through which small business can receive funding for innovative projects with high potential. Businesses involved in ground-breaking research or new technologies, or responding to challenges such as climate change and food security, can access the €3 million set aside for the SME Instrument over the period 2014-2020.
Applications by UK organisations will be made via a National Contact Point – usually a government agency or organisation. One of Horizon 2020’s aims is to foster links between EU nations, so some funding is conditional on forming partnerships with businesses overseas.
However, you may have a limited window in which to take full advantage of this particular fund – although projects will not be affected until the UK has officially left the EU, the policy after this point remains uncertain.
While money itself is no doubt important, the benefits of having the right knowledge and expertise to hand is an often overlooked part of scaling up a small business. With Innovation Vouchers, £5000 is awarded for an SME to specifically seek out the experts, advisors or consultants they need to take their innovative idea to the next level, build within their industry or protect their intellectual property rights.
One of the common difficulties faced by even the most innovative and forward-thinking start-ups is that their small size and untested business credentials make it difficult to attract investment from high street banks. This government-backed initiative was set up to help get around this problem – if you’re a start-up or very small early stage business that is yet to launch or has been trading for less than 12 months then you could receive mentoring, business planning support and a loan with an average size of £6,000.
Although this funding option will affect your business at a very early stage, it could be what you need to get the right footing for scaling up further down the line.
No matter how dedicated, hard-working and imaginative, sometimes nothing will help your business break through to the next level like a bit of extra money – so it’s worth researching these funding options to see whether they could benefit your business.
Daniel Moore is an experienced content writer by profession and he mainly writes on different aspects of business from business start ups to expansion.
by Yoon Cannon | Marketing and Sales Blog Posts, Business Growth Tips Blog
Optimize Your WordPress Blog
Every business today should have a blog. Publishing new blog content regularly is one of the easiest ways to quickly build your authority and thought leadership within your industry.
The many advantages, like reaching the press, improving SEO, building your know-like-trust factor and more, all make it well worth the time to publish new blog content on your website on a consistent basis.
It’s also important to optimize your WordPress blog for relevant keywords and keyword phrases that you target audience types in search of solutions your business delivers. If you do not optimize your blog, you will create less traffic to your website, making it harder to get found by ideal customers who are in the market for your services now.
Today, with plug ins like Yoast for WordPress, it’s easier now more than ever to optimize your blog in just minutes — saving you thousands of dollars from not needing to outsource this simple task.
Yoast is easy to use once you get the hang of it and has an ample amount of options to help you get your blog found in online searches. Follow this step by step process on how to optimize your WordPress blog using Yoast and you will soon feel like a pro!
1. Get a WordPress blog: Go to WordPress.org and click “Download WordPress.”
You will be taken to this screen: Click download again and wait for it to complete.
2. Go to your website
3. Click on the plugins tab and click add new
4. Search for Yoast SEO. This is the plugin that will help you to optimize your WordPress blog.
5. Click Install Now shown below
6. Click Activate
7. It will come up on your sidebar as “SEO” once the plugin is added correctly.
8. The configuration wizard is good for starting out with Yoast. It will take you through the basics of optimizing your blog step by step. It is located in the “General” tab shown below.
9. After you have edited your blog, if you are unhappy with your work, you can click the “restore default settings” button also in the “General” tab and it will return your settings to their original state.
10. On the “Your info” tab indicated below, you can change your website name, select if you’re a company or a person, and write your name in if you are not a company.
11. Under the Webmaster tools tab, you can verify your website with multiple search engines. Start by clicking the link to “Google Search Console.”
You will be taken to a screen that looks like this. Follow the recommended method to verify your website.
.
12. In the Titles & Metas tab, you can choose the symbol you would like to appear on the tab of your website.
13. The Homepage tab is where you will optimize the front page of your website. You can optimize the title and description which will later appear on the search engine.
14. The Post types tab is where you will customize the templates for your posts, pages, and media. You can customize the title templates and the description templates.
15. The Taxonomies tab is where you customize templates for your categories, tags, and format.
16. The social tab is where all of your social media account links go. If you click on each tab, you can customize what people will see as the frontpage of these profiles.
17. Frontpage settings will allow you to customize what people see when they share your social media profiles.
18. Click on the tools tab next.
The most useful link on the tools page is the bulk editor which allows you to edit all of the titles on your website.
19. If you choose a post and press edit, it will allow you to optimize each post inside of your website individually.
20. Under “SEO Title,” always put your most important keywords.
21. The red dots shown here will give you an idea of what is missing from your website in terms of optimization.
It’s that simple. Just use the notifications in the red and orange buttons as a checklist to fix one by one. You’ll see how quickly you can optimize your blog post for your keyword phrases that will help your blog get found by so many more potential customers who are searching online.
QUESTION: Share your best blog optimization tip below or post your question on this topic:
by Yoon Cannon | General, Lead generation, Marketing and Sales Blog Posts
About two years ago, Google started penalizing websites that are not friendly to mobile visitors, since mobile traffic now comprises the vast majority of all internet traffic.
In August of 2016, Google announced that it would begin penalizing websites that have what Google considers “intrusive” pop-ups. Here’s the official Google Webmasters post that sparked controversy across the web.
According to some recent articles, websites are seeing the effects of this change.
What are the rules?
In order to be considered mobile-friendly by Google and to show up in the search results of those using their cell phones, your website cannot have what Google considers “intrusive” pop-ups on your site.
The most important things to know are:
- This only affects the mobile version of your website, and
- There are a few quick fixes if your site is in fact being penalized.
These are intrusive pop-ups, as Google has defined them:
Source: Google
How does this affect you?
Any popups you’re using to collect email addresses or opt people into your email list or other offer could be affecting traffic to the mobile version of your website, resulting in drastically reduced traffic.
If your site isn’t mobile-friendly, you’re missing out on at least 60% of internet traffic, and that number is growing every day.
It’s important to understand the difference between acceptable and unacceptable pop-ups to make sure that Google doesn’t penalize your site.
Here’s what’s okay to have on your mobile site, according to Google:
- Push notifications
- Pop-ups about cookie usage and age verifications
- Small app banners
- Exit popups
- Popups that only appear when someone clicks a button
Find out whether your website traffic is impacted
In order to take action (or determine if you even have to take action), you have to check out whether or not this is actually affecting your website’s traffic.
Step 1: Select a custom date range in Google Analytics.
Sign into your Google Analytics account. In the left-hand sidebar, click Audience → Overview, and then select the option to define a custom date range.
Select the date range of Jan 9, 2017 – Jan 13, 2017 and compare it to the previous week. We choose this date range because this was when the changes first went to effect.
Step 2: Check the mobile traffic specifically.
Under “Audience” on the left hand side, click Mobile > Overview. If you that your site experienced a significant drop (over 20%) in mobile traffic during this period in time, your site is likely being penalized for popups.
Step 3: If you have pop-ups on the mobile version of your site, disable them.
If you did experience a huge drop in traffic during this time, you can’t regain the traffic that you’ve lost, but you can make sure that the mobile version of your site is Google-friendly moving forward.
Remember that you can still have pop-ups on the desktop version of your site, but you should disable them on mobile. You’ll have to find the settings in your specific plugin (if you’re using WordPress) to disable them on mobile.
Or only use exit pop-ups. If you’re using ClickFunnels, your site should be fine. By default, the pop-ups only appear if people ask for them by clicking a button.
—
Are you seeing the effects of this penalty on your site?
by Yoon Cannon | Marketing and Sales Blog Posts, Time Management/Productivity
Social media overwhelm––what does it mean?
To me, it means understanding that for your business to succeed this year, you should have an effective presence on at least one social media network. My favorite is LinkedIn.
Knowing that these strategies can help you generate more leads. Seeing everyone else benefiting from using social media, but feeling stuck because you feel like you just don’t have enough time to do the same.
We’re going to show you a tool that lets you put your social media efforts on autopilot, so you can reap the benefits without having to worry about giving up more of your time to manage your different profiles.
CoSchedule is perfect for the busy entrepreneur who realizes the importance of staying active on their blog and social media.
Check out this step-by-step guide to using CoSchedule to take advantage of what social media can do for your business without all the overwhelm.
What does CoSchedule do?
CoSchedule is a social media and content editorial calendar that allows you to work collaboratively with your team and see what’s ahead for your marketing efforts all in one place.
In CoSchedule, you can manage, create and publish your blogs and content to all your social media platforms content in one place, all in one calendar. Its drag and drop function also lets you easily reschedule your content.
If you use WordPress, you can also create blog inside and schedule them directly to your website from within the CoSchedule app and see this content alongside your social media schedule to ensure that your marketing is cohesive and coherent.
Additional features of CoSchedule
- A headline analyzer which tells you how well your headline is likely to do both in terms of SEO and social shares …
- Social sharing stats, so that you can see which types of content tend to perform the best ..
- Google Calendar integration, so that you can view upcoming posts and content within a tool that you already use ..
- Bit.ly integration, so that you can track link clicks from specific posts, and …
- Google Analytics integration, so that you can track the behavior of those who land on your site through your social media posts, and address any glaring issues you may come across (like high bounce rates).
CoSchedule is a huge time saver while making it easy to master social media. Its ReQueue function lets you recycle social media posts if you have empty slots in your calendar that need filling.
Simply put, CoSchedule lets me put my social media efforts on autopilot. Of course I have to go back and tweak my settings once in awhile, but it’s worlds better than logging into each individual account and posting every day, and then trying to scramble to put something new together when there’s a hole in my social media calendar.
Who else should be using CoSchedule
If you are a solopreneur who does all/most of your own marketing you should switch to CoSchedule.
If you have your own in house marketing person or team, you don’t need to be paying people to manually plan and post your social media content. You should have your team learn how to use CoSchedule.
CoSchedule helps you regularly promote the content that you’ve worked so hard to write and publish on your website, because “if you build it, they will come” is a flawed principle.
Here’s how to start using CoSchedule to put your social media efforts on autopilot.
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Start your 14-day free trial at CoSchedule
2. Connect your social media accounts by clicking the gear button in the lower left-hand corner of your screen, and then selecting the name of your account.
3. On the next screen, click “Social Profiles”.
4. Then, click “Connect a Social Profile”. You will have to go through a brief verification process to connect your profiles.
Note that because of Instagram’s restrictions on third-party apps, CoSchedule will not actually post to Instagram for you but will remind you to post at the specified times.
5. To publish a social media campaign, navigate back to your Marketing Calendar.
6. Click the + button that appears when you hover over a date on the calendar.
7. Click the option applicable to your campaign – for this tutorial, we’ll choose Social Media Campaign to promote a blog we recently published.
8. The Social Media Campaign tool will help you automatically publish messages on your preferred social media channels at specified intervals such as the day of publication, three days after, one week after, and one month after the publish date. Within this module, click the plus signs to create a new message at the specified interval. This is the best way to promote a new lead magnet or piece of content within CoSchedule.
9. Add Title and Create your own labels.
Creating color coded labels can help you distinguish which type of content when you view your calendar.
 
10. Set your custom date and time. You can choose “Best time” to publish the content on the peak time of the day when your subscribers are most active on the given social media network.
11. Click “Add Message” to add it to your queue.
A preview of how your post will appear on the selected social media network will be available at the bottom.
This is how your social media campaign messages will look when populated.
This is how your calendar will look when populated, giving you an overarching view of what’s going on across your social media channels over the next few weeks.
12. Follow up with your efforts using CoSchedule’s Analytics dashboard. View your top content report, social engagement report, and more.
Using social helpers to streamline your posts
Helpers are custom social media templates you can use. They can automatically fill in certain aspects of the content that you’re sharing, so you don’t have to type it out every time. You can create your own custom text, image, and video helpers for content that you reuse regularly and would like to easily insert into your content.
- To create a helper, click the “New Helper” button within your social media publishing module.
2. Click “Text Helper” to create a section of text that you can easily recycle.
3. Fill out image helpers for images that you regularly use within your social media posts.
4. Use video helpers for the same, but with video.
Using the ReQueue function to fill holes in your content calendar automatically
Step 1: From your Marketing Calendar view, click the ReQueue button in the sidebar.
Step 2: Select the days of the week and times when you would like your ReQueue messages to populate your feeds.
Step 3: Click the “ReQueue Groups” button in the upper right-hand corner of the page.
Step 4: Click “Add Message” to create and save your ReQueue messages. You’ll never miss a social media post again!
In conclusion, it’s worth investing the initial time to learn how to use this new tool. Start using CoSchedule to help you promote your content more consistently, so you can build a bigger presence on social media.
QUESTION: Share your question or best tip that helps you grow your social media presence without the overwhelm.
