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Wouldn’t it be great if instead of spending hours and hours a week creating and scheduling new social media posts, you could schedule a post once and know that it will be shared again and again at the best possible time? Well you can! Here’s how you can automate your social media using CoSchedule ReQueue*, freeing up loads of time to spend on other aspects of your blog…and time to actually BE SOCIABLE on social media!

How to automate your social media with CoSchedule ReQueue

How much time do you spend on social media in a week? If you are promoting new and old blog posts, as well as actually being sociable: sharing other stuff that’s going on and liking / commenting / sharing other people’s content, it could be rather a lot.

Before I started automating large parts of my social media, I reckon I used to spend 10 hours per week on social media.

And how much benefit does that bring? Whilst I think social media is an important part of blogging, in terms of actually driving traffic to my blogs, it’s tiny compared to the huge amounts of traffic I get from SEO.

So to me it makes very little sense to spend hours and hours each week on something that actually contributes very little to my bottom line. Time is one of our most precious resources as bloggers: we only have a finite amount of time so we need to be choosy about what we spend it on.

At the same time, being active on social media is important – it helps new posts gain traction, it stops old posts getting forgotten about, it gets old content in front of new eyes, it helps our readers get to know the person behind the blog and gives them an easy way to contact us.

The trouble is, so much of our allotted social media time is spent on sharing content, we don’t have much time left to BE SOCIABLE!

So, if it’s important to be present on social media, and especially to be sociable, yet it takes up valuable blogging time that could be used elsewhere – such as SEO or email marketing, what’s the solution?

I believe the solution is to automate social media – not everything, I hasten to add!! I’m not talking about automating the ‘being sociable’ part of social media. I definitely do not think paying for some bot to like stuff and write spammy comments on my behalf is the way to go **shudders**.

No. I’m talking about automating a large part of the actual posting.

I’m talking about creating evergreen social media messages to share your evergreen blog content and automating those social media posts so they repeat over and over again.

Automating the majority of your social media posting means getting your evergreen out there and in front of fresh eyes, and ensuring your social profiles always have new content, even if you are on holiday / taking a break / super busy / etc. Freeing you from the tyranny of having to constantly ‘fill up your social media queues’ or worse, spend an hour or two a day on social media.

Why CoSchedule is the best social media automation tool…

There are a number of good social media automation tools out there, names such as Meet Edgar, SmarterQueue, Agorapulse, SocialOomph etc. However, by far the best I’ve discovered is CoSchedule*.

Why is CoSchedule so awesome?

CoSchedule is awesome because it will allow you to create multiple social media posts with just a couple of clicks.

But EVEN better, CoSchedule will allow you to add those posts into your ReQueue to be shared forever more (or exactly when you want them to be shared.)

This is perfect for sharing and resharing evergreen blog posts.

Most of the blog posts I write are evergreen. On Easy Peasy Foodie I write mainly recipes – sure some of them are seasonal, but the vast majority are ‘evergreen’. That is, they are just as tasty in June or January! On Productive Blogging it’s the same thing: almost all my posts are relevant whether you read them today or in 3 months’ time… or in 3 years’ time. (And if they are not, I’ll update them, so they are!)

Every time I create a new post, I create a really good set of social media posts (I can afford to spend a little longer writing better ones now I know that they’ll be shared again and again) and then I put them into my ReQueue, which is set to reshare my posts once a month.

ReQueue will then keep sharing those posts every single month without me having to lift a finger!

I can also create separate ReQueues for particular time specific events – for example I can create a Christmas ReQueue that will reshare all my Christmas posts.

I can turn on my Christmas ReQueue in November and turn it off after Christmas. AND I can then keep the same ReQueue for next Christmas, and the one after, and the one after that – each year adding my new Christmas posts, and taking out any that I don’t want in there anymore.

Sounds too good to be true? It really is THAT AWESOME!

So how do you set it up?

How to set up CoSchedule ReQueue

First, you’ll need to get a CoSchedule Account. I go through the process of how to set up your account in this post => How to schedule social media with CoSchedule

Once you’ve set up your account, you’ll get a calendar like this. Initially it will be blank, but once you start scheduling and automating messages it will fill up like mine. See all those green sections? They are all ReQueue social media posts – more social media posting than I could ever do manually, and I’ve spent exactly ZERO TIME creating them.

To set up your ReQueue for the first time, go to the three lines in the top left and hover. This will open the menu. Select REQUEUE, and you will land on this screen…

This is the screen where you can create groups and see all the social media posts that are in those groups. But first you need to edit the settings. Click on GO TO MY REQUEUE SETTINGS in the top right.

Edit Global Settings

First you need to edit your global settings.

Simply ENABLE ReQueue and decide how many times per month you would like a social media post to be reshared. Currently you can opt to have a posts reshared once or twice per month. This means you won’t start annoying your social media followers by bombarding them with the same post over and over again. I currently have this set to once a month.

Edit Intelligent Groups

Next you need to edit your intelligent group settings.

Click on INTELLIGENT GROUP SETTINGS.

This screen allows you to decide which days and times you want your requeue messages to be sent out (I have mine set to always, but you can select only certain days or times if you prefer. CoSchedule will always send your messages at the best time, so it makes sense to me to let CoSchedule do the choosing!)

You can also customise how frequently you send a message out on each social media profile. So, for example I currently have it set up to send 4 Facebook messages, 2 Instagram messages and 20 tweets per day.

This means you can be sensitive to the individual needs of each social platform. I would never share 20 Facebook messages per day for example – that would be way too much! But 20 on Twitter is fine.

It’s worth also bearing in mind that these are MAXIMUMS – that means CoSchedule will take into account other messages that you have already scheduled and ReQueue will simply fill in any gaps.

Set up your ReQueue Groups

Now you need to set up your groups. Click GO TO REQUEUE GROUPS to get back to the ReQueue Groups Screen.

Next, click ADD NEW GROUP and select INTELLIGENT GROUPS (I explain more about PLACEHOLDER GROUPS below).

I suggest the first group you should create is an evergreen ReQueue group. This is where you can schedule evergreen social media posts which will reshare your evergreen blog posts (or any other evergreen social media messages) over and over again.

All you need to do is give your group a name, move the toggle to SENDING and you are done.

Now it’s time to add some social media messages to your group. You can do this in one of two ways. Either directly in the ReQueue group or from the CoSchedule Calendar…

Adding Social Media Messages to ReQueue directly in the ReQueue Group

The first way to add social media messages to ReQueue is to create them right in the group. To do this, simply hit ADD NEW REQUEUE MESSAGE over on the right-hand side…

and you will get this popup box…

Choose which social media profiles you want to create the message for (you can pick multiple social media profiles if you wish) and then write your post just as you would normally. (More about how to create social media posts in CoSchedule here.)

Under REQUEUE group make sure you choose the right group and click ADD MESSAGE. This message will be added to your ReQueue and be shared once or twice a month (according to the schedule you set in your global settings) FOREVER! (Or until you choose to stop it.)

The other way to add things to your ReQueue is from the calendar…

Adding Social Media Messages to ReQueue from the CoSchedule Calendar

You can add any social media posts you create in your CoSchedule Calendar to ReQueue. Simply go to your calendar and click in the top right of the date you want to post your social media message.

You will get this screen…

Choose SOCIAL CAMPAIGN and give it a title, a label (optional) and adjust the time. Click CREATE SOCIAL CAMPAIGN…

If the campaign is tied to a link, click the link sign and add your link (if not, leave this blank) then click the plus next to SAME DAY AS PUBLISH…

Select the profiles you wish to use and create your message…

Scroll down to the bottom left of the box where you’ll see a green plus sign next to REQUEUE. Click the plus and select the correct ReQueue group, then click ADD MESSAGE. Finally click where it says DRAFT in the bottom right and change to PUBLISHED (or SCHEDULED)…

Once the social media message has been published it will be automatically added to your ReQueue to be reshared over and over again.

Creating Seasonal Groups in ReQueue

One of the big advantages of using ReQueue is that you can create seasonal ReQueue groups for seasonal content. So, for example, you could create a Christmas ReQueue group which you fill up with Christmas content. You could also create an Easter Group, a Summer Group, a Winter Group – as many ReQueue groups as makes sense for your content.

To do this hover over the 3 white lines in the top right-hand corner and click on ReQueue…

Choose ADD NEW GROUP from the bottom left and choose Intelligent Group…

Name your group and this time select start and end times for the group. For example, for a Christmas Group I might put from 15^th November to 25^th December. Move the toggle to SENDING and you are done…

You can now add messages to this group in either of the two ways I’ve explained above.

These messages will be automatically shared via ReQueue until the end date when they will stop being shared. You don’t have to remember to do this manually, so you won’t have any embarrassing moments where on January 7th you discover you are still sharing Christmas posts!! You can literally set it and forget it.

The really fabulous thing about Seasonal ReQueue Groups is that you can use them again the next year. You can simply change the dates and it will start sending out all those seasonal messages again, saving you hours of work!

Creating ReQueue Groups which just share on a particular day

ReQueue have recently added a new feature to allow you to fix when content from that group is shared. This is really useful if you want to use particular day-sensitive hashtags such as #MondayMotivation or #FridayVibes. CoSchedule call these Placeholder Groups.

To create a new Placeholder Group in ReQueue, go to ADD NEW GROUP on the main ReQueue screen, but this time select Placeholder Group and you will get this screen…

Give your group a name. Next, choose a date, time and frequency, by clicking the GREEN PLUS SIGN under your chosen day and then click SAVE. You can now save messages to this ReQueue group in the same 2 ways I described above.

So, for example, I could call this group Monday Motivation, choose every Monday at 8am and then fill this group up with great #MondayMotivation quotes, safe in the knowledge that these messages will only go out on Mondays…

I could do the same with #WednesdayWisdom, #FridayVibes #TBT (Throwback Thursday), #FridayNightisCurryNight etc.

Why CoSchedule ReQueue is so amazing

ReQueue is so amazing because after you have been using it for a while, you will have enough messages in your queues for CoSchedule to be able to post on your behalf onto all your favourite social media platforms several times, every day.

This frees up your time up to either do other things on your blog that have more of an impact (SEO, email marketing, create products to sell, pitch for sponsored posts…) or to actually go and be sociable on social media.

Before I used ReQueue, my social media time would be spent endlessly filling up queues to make sure I had plenty of posts or having to remember every day to post something.

Now my social media time is spent commenting, liking, sharing and discovering new stuff. AND I am sharing way more than ever before, which means my content is getting in front of more people and my social media followers are growing.

How much does CoSchedule ReQueue cost?

Now I’ll be straight with you. CoSchedule is not cheap, but it is good value! It currently costs $40 per month** (about £30 at today’s exchange rates), but when you consider what it does, it is more than worth it. I estimate it saves me about 10 hours per week. But actually it does at least 4 times as much as what I was able to do when I had to schedule everything manually, so that’s 40 hours a week! That’s like having a full time VA for a fraction of the price!!

The other fab thing is that you can write a review of CoSchedule and get half off your bill straight away, and then each time someone uses your affiliate link (*Ahem – this is MY CoSchedule affiliate link*, you know, in case 😉), you get another 10% off your bill. Once you’ve got your bill down to zero, CoSchedule actually start paying you!

Free 14 day trial!

Still not sure? Well, the great news is you can get a free 14 day trial, where you can try out all the features of CoSchedule – including ReQueue and see if it’s for you!

Get your free trial here => FREE 14 DAY TRIAL OF COSCHEDULE*

Need more help with CoSchedule?

If you love the sound of CoSchedule and want to try it out, don’t forget to check out my step by step guide to using CoSchedule to schedule and automate social media. Where I show you step by step how to create your account and start scheduling your social media.

I also have a CoSchedule Review where I share all the amazing things CoSchedule can do to help you get more done in less time on your blog!

Or, if you have a question, feel free to ask in the comments below…

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*This blog post contains affiliate links, this means if you click on a link and go on to buy the product I recommend, I will get a small commission, but you will not be charged a penny more – thanks in advance!

**Prices correct at 30/10/18

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