7 Secrets to Creating Better Content, Faster: Batching Content for Business-First Professionals
Picture this: you are staring at your phone, painstakingly trying to caption a photo and share something you are truly passionate about. Your thoughts are spiraling…
“What do I want to say?”
“Is this picture good enough?”
“Who will this post attract?”
“Does this accurately represent ME and my brand?”
“Where do I start?”
You’re not alone — this in-the-moment block is one of the biggest time sucks in social media, and something that 100% of our clients come to us struggling with. Approaching your content this way is a fast track to social media burnout. And the major reason why is because this is a reactive model to content creation — and I want you to build a proactive model.
Welcome to the stage… content batching! The #1 formula to producing social media content while saving you time and headache. Busy business professionals who produce content reactively vs. proactively often find their time disappears before their eyes, and their brand voice suffers. Content batching is a method of preparing social media content far before the posting date. Batching allows you to create consistency across your account and better define your voice and message. Not to mention the enormous relief when your posts are prepped a month in advance, leaving ample time for everything else on your to-do list!
Want to know how we content batch for all of our professional brands? We’re here to spill the deets! We created Numinous for dynamic business owners looking to expand their outreach and watch their business blossom. We work with passionate professionals, not social media gurus! With everything on your plate, producing brilliant, on-brand social content on a whim is simply unrealistic. Let’s build you a system that actually works.
Batching: Step by Step
Batching is a productivity method that can be used across all, and multiple, social platforms at once. As an aside, I don’t ever recommend starting with too many social platforms at once. I often see clients come to us with 4 or more different social accounts and they’ve given up on them all because it’s too much to handle. I recommend starting instead with a few key social platforms that you’re looking to focus on, and when you have a handle on it, grow to incorporate other avenues of digital marketing.
In short, batching is the process of creating a bunch of content in a set amount of time. As an example, I often see clients spend upwards of 30-40 minutes on one post. In content batching, you would instead spend that 30-40 minutes gathering all of the photos you need for the next month, or outlining all of your blogs. In a more complex model, you might use a batching session to take a video you’ve filmed for your Youtube, put it through a transcriber to transform it into a blog, then take that blog and break it down into dozens of quotes and posts to publish across your website, paid ads and social media. Endless content from one video, and it only took you an hour or so to make it. In one more example, we often facilitate clients through batching sessions, where we meet for 1-2 hours and create all of the photos and short form videos we know they’ll need for the next several months. We then know we have plenty of content for the quarter to come.
At its essence, batching means organizing your content production around social media in a way that keeps you out of your head and ahead of the game. There are several things you need to do, and know, to set up this more productive process, which we’ll cover here, but once you are in the flow you’ll be amazed at how much less stressful social media will be.
Let me break it down for you.
Step 01: Define Your Content Pillars
This is the most crucial step to batching and ultimately, a fundamental step in building an effective social media strategy. If you don’t know what your pillars are, you’re probably spending a lot of time inventing new things to talk about without creating much consistency across your platforms. Remember, your social platforms are your client’s direct access to your company’s message. That means consistency is wildly important! In social media, content pillars are 3-5 in-depth themes that you frequently revisit throughout your content cycle. One of the basic formula examples might be to create a balance of personal posts, business promotion, and valuable educational content. These pillars can ultimately be broken down into innumerable subtopics. Check out this quick example:
You are a buyer’s agent from Portland, Oregon specializing in historical homes in the city’s metro area. You are interested in connecting with your national community of real estate agents to encourage referral business from feeder cities and in growing your social media presence with potential clients and historic home buffs.
Your content pillars (reoccuring social themes) might include:
Promotional Pillar
Newly Listed homes in your demographic
Info on homebuyer’s classes you’re hosting
Talking about your email list and encouraging sign-ups
Exclusive campaigns with local vintage retails stores
Educational Pillar
Educational content on historic homes and your stories
Educational posts on owning, buying and selling historic homes
Market Information
Personal Pillar
Personal posts that connect the audience with your personality, life and passion!
Behind-the-scenes posts about what the day-to-day looks like for a historic home realtor.
Ultimately, determining your content pillars will be one of the first things you do in building a social media strategy, so if you need to brush up, visit our Content Pillar Breakdown blog before popping back over here for more batching goodness!
Step 02: Free Writing is Batching
Once you have your content pillars set, allow yourself space to do freeform brainstorming on a regular basis. Open your notes app, EverNote, or whip out your handy-dandy notebook. Over your morning coffee, try freewriting — a technique used by writers to combat writer’s block. Begin with a single prompt and allow your mind to wander. The trick is to write without judgement. SO often we squash valuable ideas because we convince ourselves they suck. Your mind is filled to the brim with brilliant ideas — don’t lock them away! Write down every content idea you come up with and don’t get hung up on making them over-defined at this juncture.
If you need a kick-start, use one of these prompts:
What drives you?
What inspired the launch of your business or personal brand?
Who is your ideal audience? What do they need from you?
What do you love about your career?
What do you hope to change in your field?
Who inspires you?
In your personal life?
In your field?
In your community?
In history?
All the time that you spend reflecting on your business journey and model can inform your content pillars and set you up for amazing batching sessions. Treat these free writing as a type of batching session themselves. I’ve often seen people sit down to do an exercise like this and walk out with a whole three month plan. Or, step away after a free-writing session and come back a few days later and work on breaking that session into a series of captions for the month.
Step 03: Turn Your Free-Writing into Captions
This one is pretty self explanatory. Set your pillars and do your first free-writing. Come back after a few days and take the two and break them down, expand on them, freestyle off of them. Writing your captions ahead of time will allow you the benefit of focusing on one task, will help you see the narrative you’re creating from a macro level, and will allow you ample time in the future to revise.
Step 04: Find Visual Assets to Match Your Plan & Create Those you Need
Great content can come from anywhere. And you likely already have plenty at your disposal. Dig through your phone’s photo bank and save content from previous events, photo shoots, or daily life that you can share on your socials and pair with the messages you’ve devised from your content pillars. Photos from past shoots, vacations, projects, company bbqs, networking conventions are all opportunities for easy-breezy content. Trust us, your followers will not pay mind to repeated outfits or locations!
What you truly don’t have a visual companion for, mark down and when you have your list for the next month or two, schedule a time to create all of it at once. Yes, maybe you’ll need to plan a few locations and a few costume changes but you’ll save a ton of time on driving to separate locations on different days and you’ll benefit from only having to jump in front of the camera for one day, instead of feeling the pressure to do it every day. If it’s graphic design you need, mark all your ideas for the next month that will require graphic design and find a graphic designer to help you, or use tools like Canva to create your own!
Step 05: Pro Tip - Plan Ahead
Everytime you feel inspired, capture the moment in a photo or video and store it away for future you. Out for coffee with a fellow colleague? Take a photo. Networking with an inspiring figure in your field? Take a photo. Working on a new project? Take photos throughout the process! This is a simple and effective way to batch content without any extra effort.
Step 06: Organize and Create your Content
Collect your freewriting, inspiration, and photos… it’s time to put the pieces together!
To maintain consistency with your followers, we suggest starting with a posting rhythm of 2-4 times a week and cycling through your content pillars (ultimately most platforms will require more, but make sure that you create processes that are manageable and enjoyable). You can easily create a social media content calendar with applications you may already use on the daily: Google Sheets or Google Calendar. Or, you can create and schedule posts directly in your scheduler. We’ve enjoyed Buffer, Later (for Instagram), and currently use Sprout!
Here are a few tips for making this process even easier:
Ease is the key. Your workflow should feel easy and manageable. Plan half an hour here, and half an hour there. As a judge, we typically spend approximately two hours per month devising content for one account. Break this up over time for the month ahead to start. If it doesn’t feel easy, there’s a flaw in your system!
Keep it small and the same. Tackle tasks little by little and keep your mind focused on one thing at a time. Do all of your captions at once, or film all of your videos at one.
Make it routine. If social media is an important part of your marketing strategy, treat it as you would your other responsibilities. Do you make time to review your business plan or send invoices? Make time routinely to address your social media needs.
If you don’t have time, find support! This is pretty self-explanatory but I’m always surprised how many business owners don’t know that big accounts are often run by big teams! Outsource before you get overwhelmed!
Step 07: Numbers are your Friend
As you get more comfortable with your new social media systems, don’t forget that every platform you’re on has amazing analytics offerings that can help you understand your reach and adjust your content strategy overtime. Spend time getting familiar with your platform-of-choices analytics insights and periodically bring your findings back to the table. We recommend at least once quarterly, monthly if you remember. Adjust your content pillars, posting schedule, messaging and more as needed!
Social content production is huge for the growth and success of your business… it shouldn’t be a tireless, anxiety-provoking task. No more creative slumps, thought spirals, or unproductive time spent — you have the basics down. Get out there and batch!
When batching is a breeze and you’re ready for an upgrade, check out our favorite content support tools and applications to amplify your impact!
NEED A HAND? CONTENT TOOLS ARE A GREAT RESOURCE!
As you dive into content batching, if you run into a problem that is taking up too much of your time, there is a tool out there to help!
Planning and Project Management
Asana is a virtual workspace for project-based companies, to monitor and overview the completion of projects. The major differences between Asana’s pricing are in the number of users. For teams smaller than 15 people, Asana is free! There are no storage limits either...a win-win! Try out Asana’s free social media calendar! Especially helpful if you plan or batch content for multiple social media platforms, Asana maps out and organizes your social posts among platforms. We’ve had other clients rave about Trello. We use Clickup here at Numinous for project management.
Scheduling and Analytics
Later is a great tool for business owners and entrepreneurs who manage their content solo and are using Instagram, Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest. Their content calendar is so simple to use — you can archive mass amounts of photos and drag them across the calendar to your preferred posting date/time. Because the platform specializes with Instagram, it allows you to view your profile before posting, so you can nail your aesthetic. Beyond that, the platform provides hashtag suggestions and engagement metrics to monitor who is interacting with your posts. Later is free for one social profile and 30 posts — from there, subscriptions start at $15/month.
If Instagram is the primary social platform for your business, check out Planoly, which allows you to be even more hands-off with day-to-day posting. Sit back… relax… because Planoly will upload your scheduled posts for you. The free subscription package is surprisingly inclusive, compared to similar programs — including 30 uploads per month and basic metric tracking!
Hashtag Generators
Dependent on the social platform, hashtag and keyword generators are your best friends. Choosing the right hashtags on instagram will determine the success of your posts! Beyond their content calendar feature, Later has a hashtag generator to create and save hyper-relevant hashtags for your brands. MetaHashtags has also been a tried and true resource for content creators. Both tools allow you to filter through hundreds of hashtags by length, frequency of use, shadowban, and ranking analytics! Remember that hashtags, although always a system of categorizing information, tend to perform a little differently across platforms. Take some time to understand what they do for your platform.
WANT MORE SUPPORT? GIVE US A CALL!
None of the above working for you? Or maybe you’re thinking that it’s time to get social media off of your plate? No worries, we have perfected content production, so you don’t have to lift a finger. We will brainstorm the following month’s content with you, review last month’s metrics, and make any adjustments to your content strategies that will aid in your company’s social growth. Our team of copywriters produces captions tailored to your voice, personality, and authenticity. With your approval, we take care of posting and any social media management you may need! We basically have everything you need to be the social media beast you know you can be!
---------------------
HERE FOR THE CLIFFNOTES?
Phew! That was a lot to absorb. Need a refresher?
Benefits of content batching:
Maintain a consistent brand voice
Develop a balanced patter of content
Connect effectively with your followers and potential clients
AND save valuable time and unnecessary stress
Content batching process:
Define your content pillars — projects, products, upcoming launches, “Day in the Life” posts, personal “favorites”, social activism, or community call to action.
Draw on inspiration — What drives you? What inspired the launch of your business or personal brand? Who is your ideal audience? What do you love about your career? What do you hope to change in your field? Who inspires you?
Organize and schedule your content — Asana, Planoly, Later, Numinous Creative’s social media services
We are here if you need a helping hand! Browse all of our services and reach out to get started with one of our social packages!