Hi! Welcome to the third edition of Social Media Sunday. If you need to catch up on my Social Media Sunday posts, check out my tips for social media success and then tips to increase likes and engagement on your Facebook fan page.
Today I was going to write about Twitter, what you should be doing to gain more followers and what you shouldn't be doing (spoiler alert, don't use True Twit Validation). I have so much to say about Twitter, but I got excited about another project, so I think my Twitter post will be pushed to next month (you know, after I write it somewhere else other than in my head).
There was a blogger I know who was offering a blog planner download as a way of fundraising for a good cause. I thought it would be cool to have a blog planner, I felt good about supporting her cause, and supporting this blogger with my purchase. I paid the $10 and downloaded the planner. I hated it. There were over 50 pages in the planner. It was too large, too cumbersome, and who wants to print out a bunch of paper these days? I'd much rather work on my files electronically. Although the planner was not any use to me, I still felt good about donating the $10 to her cause.
The best part is that it sparked an idea for me to create my own blog planner, one that worked for me and my blogging needs. I was looking for something that I could use to organize myself and snapshot my blog planning for an entire year. I didn't need a new page for each week, or each month for that matter. I started working on creating my file.
This is a one page planner that is not intended for printing (at least not on one page). I uploaded it to Google Docs so I can update my planner from any computer.
I divided up the sections with screenshots so that I could explain it you, but keep in mind this is one spreadsheet. I spent most of the afternoon working on this planner. It wasn't hard, but I thought there might be other bloggers out there they may want to use my planner, so I decided to offer it as a free download as my gift to you. Of course, once you download it, you could edit it further anyway you see fit.
Blog Stats:
The first part is to keep track of your blog stats by month. I like to plug in my numbers and see how they change month to month and over time. There is a spot for page views, unique monthly views, and visitors, (information that I get from Google Analytics) as well as places to plug in followers on all my social media channels. I left a few extra rows in the bottom in case there is some new social media channel that I don't use yet that I'll want to start tracking later. For now, I just included the big ones. You may want to add YouTube, but for now I don't need to track my 3 subscribers. :)
Income/Expenses
The next part is to track income and expenses. There are 10 rows that can be used for either income or expenses. You click on the drop down box and choose either income or expense. Then you simply enter the amount and the reason. You can total your net income at the bottom of each month by subtracting your expenses from your income.
Blog Planner/Topics:
This next section is to plan blog topics/ideas. The column to the far left is 31 days for every day in the month. I plugged in my future blog post topics in each month's column. If they were still in idea stage, then I just entered the idea. I can always move things around if/when things change. There are certain posts that I do monthly, like Social Media Sunday, Throwback Thursday, and Feature Friday, so I went ahead and plugged those in for the rest of the year.
Notes/Planning/To Do/Calendar:
The bottom part of the spreadsheet has boxes where you can enter any notes, planning, or to do lists for the month. I also included a monthly calendar at the bottom of each column because I realized that the dates listed along the side column are great, but when I am planning my month I sometimes need to know what day a particular date falls on (like for Throwback Thursday).
Screenshot:
Here is a screenshot of most of the planner. Of course it is much larger once you download it.
You can download my free yearly blog planner by clicking on the link below. It will open the file in Google Docs. In order to save the file in Excel, follow the below instructions.
Once you click the download now link below:
click FILE from the menu across the top of the screen
choose DOWNLOAD AS
choose MICROSOFT EXCEL
Download Now
If you have any issues or questions you can email at me www.runningwithollie(at)gmail(dot)com.
I hope you enjoy my 2014 blog planner. Let me know what you think, unless you hate it. Then you can just go ahead and make your own planner. :)
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Keep Running,
Lea
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