Regardless of your industry, you know that we’re in an era where content is king. Which means that now, more than ever, we need to get on the content game in order to help our small businesses grow.
Social media is generally a visual platform (with the exception of Twitter, maybe), which means users are looking for aesthetically pleasing, engaging content. Visual content means you need to grab the attention of a viewer with something quick, bold, and probably beautiful in order to get them to stick around long enough to actually watch the full video, or read the caption.
All of that takes time. And sometimes our brain isn’t firing on all those creative cylinders at once. So, how do we solve that problem? Batching.
This post will define what the heck batching is, and outline 5 simple steps in batching your content for social media to set you up for success and productivity without burn out. For more on batching to increase productivity, check out this post.
What is batching?
Batching is simply grouping together tasks, rather than task switching. You can group together tasks by day, week, month. Or, you can group your tasks on a more granular scale like by the hour, or before and after your lunch break.
Grouping tasks together helps to increase productivity, whereas consistent task switching can cause lower productivity as the mind typically takes a moment to readjust to the new task at hand. For a more in-depth look at batching, check out my post on batching for increased productivity.
How to Batch Content Creation for Social Media
There are a lot of moving parts when it comes to social media content. And, hopefully, you have some sort of strategy in place, rather than just throwing up anything and everything. My hope for you is that by batching your content creation, you’re able to streamline the process in a more time effective manner. And also reduce the chance of burn out!
As creatives, the inspiration isn’t always flowing, am I right? Tapping into the power of batching alongside other cycles, moods, time, and energy is the best way to maximize both your time and your energy.
Content Plan
First things first, come up with a content plan. This is your social media strategy. If you have no idea what the heck I’m talking about, start first with your purpose. Why are you posting on this account? From there, extrapolate out into a more formal content plan.
There are a few key components to think about when you’re forming your content plan:
- How many times will you post on the grid every week?
- Which days will you post on the grid?
- Of those posts, how many will be static, Reels, and carousels?
- How many days per week will you post stories?
- How many story slides will you post on those days?
- What is the purpose of your content?
- What are you currently trying to sell?
- What are you planning on launching soon?
These 8 steps are a great way to get you started on your content plan. If you’re an influencer who runs an account that has a blend of your personal life alongside work and brand partnerships, you will also want to consider the ratio of personal posts to work posts so as not to lose your audience’s attention with endless ads.
Once you’ve answered these 8 questions, you need to get more specific with your content plan. Depending on what feels best to you, create a plan weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly. This is where you’ll get specific, meaning you know on Monday the 13th you’re posting about your new Bali retreat, whereas on Tuesday the 14th you’re posting a yoga tutorial for hip opening. See, it’s really specific. This will help you move forward.
Shoot Content
Now that you have a content plan, you’re ready to actually shoot the content. Sometimes, you’re able to repurpose old content, rather than always shooting everything brand new. For instance, say you have some static photos of you in the splits that you did for a blog post on how to do the splits. You can use these same photos for social media to share hip opening tips in the caption.
Make a note of how much content you need to shoot, and how much content you can repurpose. Then, start shooting! Depending on the scope of your work, this might be something you can pump out in a day. Whereas other industries it might require a full week. Either way, batch the shooting process together to save on resources.
If you’ve rented a studio to shoot the content, better to get as much done as possible in the allotted rental time for the studio, right? You can also maximize your photographer’s hourly rate this way.
Remember, your content plan is specific, so you know exactly what you need to shoot. This is really helpful, because it’s easy to freeze in front of the camera. Or, to have a lot of really great ideas, and then lose half of them once it comes time to actually execute. Make sure your specific content plan is solid before you shoot.
Edit Content
After shooting content, you’re ready to move onto the next group of tasks: editing content. Again, your content calendar is key here, because it will give you an idea of exactly how you need to edit it, and WHY you’re posting it at all. Reserve editing content to photo and video editing only. Copywriting is an entirely different task.
Try to create cohesion in your editing style so that your grid looks nice. This cohesion will also make your editing process faster and easier, because you’re able to apply the same presets or filters to every post. I highly suggest buying a preset bundle from creatives you love (I love the doyoutravel presets), as well as a simple video editing app (I use the Tone app, and Perfect Video).
Editing content means the Reel is totally ready, other than the caption. It means all of the videos are spliced perfectly, transitions are on point, text overlay done, and the music is perfect. Make sure you save the Reel outside of your drafts, as sometimes drafts glitch and the Reel disappears- which really sucks.
It’s also helpful to save the Reel, because of repurposed content! You might be able to use that same Reel again in a few months, or use it in your stories or your website. Save your content, always.
Content Writing
Okay, so the content is all edited, you’re ready to start writing. For some people, this can be the most challenging part. In that case, I suggest either hiring a copywriter OR keep it as short and sweet as possible.
For business accounts, typically less is more when it comes to the caption, unless your caption is instructional in some way. There’s a little less fluff, as there are less personal insights and musings compared to an individual’s account. Write captions that are straight, to the point, without sounding cold and robotic. Throw an emoji in there for good measure. And research the hashtags you use before using them.
Schedule Content
The last grouped task is simply scheduling the content. This part will be super easy, because you have the content calendar already. Without the content calendar, you would’ve jumped straight into shooting content, and then just had a whole bunch of STUFF that you’d need to sort and organize through in this scheduling portion.
Since you didn’t do that, and you made the content calendar, all you have to do is plug in the correct post to the corresponding posting date. Make sure to check in with the optimal timing for posting based on your personal professional dashboard analytics, to ensure you’re posting at the best time for your audience in order to improve engagement.
There are a few ways to schedule your content so that you don’t need to post it in real time. Tailwind and Hootsuite are two popular options. You can also schedule posts now directly on Instagram, although you still can’t schedule stories through there.
Scheduling your posts in advance ensures that you get the post up at the best time for your demographic without forcing you to be tied to your phone at said given time. Plus, if you want to take the weekends off, but you still want your socials to be active- scheduling in advance allows you to do just that.
There you have it, 5 simple groups of tasks for content creation on social media! Now, you get to decide how exactly you want to group them. Perhaps you do one task each day of the work week. Or perhaps you take an entire week for each task. Play around with it, and see what works best for you and your business.
Most of all, have fun with it! That’s where social media creation really thrives.
xx,
K
