As content creators, it’s a beautiful thing to use our creativity and a sky-is-the-limit approach to our work. However, this can also get overwhelming quickly. When there’s a constant need to post regularly with diversified content, it can feel like you’re running on a hamster wheel. But I’m here to tell you it doesn’t and shouldn’t have to be that way. Batching your content is a great way to stay organized and help you save time. I’m sharing how to batch content like a pro and help you streamline your content across several platforms.
How to Batch Content Like a Pro
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Content batching is doing a certain task like writing social captions for a certain time period like multiple days or even weeks. For instance, you could create and schedule a week or month’s worth of social media posts in one afternoon. That way, that task is finished and you don’t have to think about it for the rest of the week or month.
I like to think of content batching like your brain being an airplane. It takes a lot to get up in the air, but once you’re there, it’s smooth sailing with little effort after you’ve reached the perfect altitude. Well, your brain is like that too. Each time you start and stop tasks, you’re having to “take off” and “land” the plane. This wastes time, brain power, and energy.
Because it can feel a little overwhelming knowing where to start with content batching, here are my tried and tested tips on how you can start content batching today.
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Have a Brain Dump Day and Create a Plan
Before you batch content, you have to create a plan of what and when you’re going to batch. I recommend holding a brain dump day to create a content plan for the next month. Brain dumping isn’t the most elegant of terms, but it’s what it sounds like. You take everything you’ve been thinking about and dump those thoughts onto paper. This helps your creative energy flow and allows you to begin the content creation process with ease. Maybe your brain dump consists of tasks that need to be done or content ideas. Whatever they are, get them onto paper and out of your head. Then, you organize those thoughts from there.
A content calendar is an excellent tool to use for creating consistent content. Depending on your brand you may be posting on average three to four times a week, use the ideas from your brain dump and fill in those days with those content ideas. The goal is to create a framework so that you can produce high quality. You want to also be mindful of collaboration deadlines and the details for each of those to work into your content calendar.
Content pillars are super helpful to help guide what type of content you’re going to share. This helps you stay on-brand and focused. Say you’re a fashion and beauty blogger. Your content pillars could consist of skincare, makeup, workwear, budget-friendly fashion, and hair health. From those five pillars, you want to make sure your content touches on each of those pillars equally and creatively. This helps your content remain fresh and valuable to your target audience. You should try to limit your pillars to between four and six different ones. Anything more than that will feel overwhelming. This is a great strategy for creating content for social media and sharing daily on Instagram stories. If you’ve ever had those days where you feel like you don’t know what to post or share, going back to your content calendar and your content pillars will help guide you! This way you always have something to chat about with your audience!
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Pick Your Content Format
Many content creators use several different social media platforms. If you do this too, it’s best to also plan out which days you’re going to post to which channel. For instance, if you have a blog, YouTube channel, and an Instagram account, are you going to post to each one on the same day? Or are you going to post on YouTube on certain days, Instagram on certain days, and your blog on certain days? It’s nice to have some consistency, so your audience knows where content is being posted and when.
For example, if you have a content idea for how to wear knee-high boots, and you want to create content for each of your platforms, are you going to post to all three on the same day? Or do you like to post on different days to extend the life of that piece of content? All of those details need to be worked out when you’re choosing your format.
When thinking about content formats, one of our top tips for business owners is to use stock photos! This helps in not feeling like you constantly have to be in front of the camera, while still having professional-looking, visually appealing, graphics. We love Unsplash for free stock photography and Social Squares for a paid monthly subscription.
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Schedule Your Calendar
Now that you have your content ideas and your content format, it’s time to start scheduling when you’re going to batch your user-generated content. Look at your calendar from a daily, weekly, or monthly standpoint and determine if there’s something you’re doing over and over. If so, that’s a perfect thing for the content batch. Could you automate that task? Maybe it’s something like invoicing that takes up a good chunk of your time each month. That can easily be automated with a program like Honeybook. Another favorite content scheduler of ours is Planoly and Tailwind. We use Planoly for Instagram and Tailwind for Pinterest.
Next, you want to include important dates like deadlines for collaborations or scheduled photo shoots, etc in your calendar. Then, look at your content calendar and write out each task that needs to be completed for each day you’re posting content. For instance, if you’re doing a Spanx collaboration you’ve agreed to a blog post on how to style faux leather leggings and post a YouTube video on your channel, then here are some of the tasks you would put down:
- Write a blog post
- Shoot photos for blog post
- Film YouTube video
- Edit YouTube video
- Write a caption for a YouTube video
- Link items for YouTube videos and blog posts
Now look at these tasks.
Do you have other blog posts that need to be written for the month? If so, you could write your blog posts for the month in a day or two. Schedule those writing days into your calendar. That way your blog content is finished for the month, and you can move on to other tasks you need to get completed.
Do you have other YouTube videos that need to be filmed? If so, you could film multiple videos in one day. And then schedule a day or two to edit your video content.
Other tasks you can batch could include:
- Create graphics or collages for your LTK or ShopStyle accounts, Pinterest, or other platforms
- Schedule LTK or ShopStyle posts
- Write social captions
- Schedule Pinterest pins, static Instagram posts, or Facebook posts
- Link items to include in upcoming blog posts and YouTube videos
- Take photos for multiple collaborations or social posts
No matter how you decide to content batch, it’s important to pick a system that’s right for you. It’s about using your time efficiently, so you can create a healthy work-life balance.
Do you batch your content? If so, how do you like to batch your content? Let me know in the comments below!