Sam’s favourite topic, content batching. A recent content batching convert, Sam wants to give you her top tips for batching your content and why this way of planning and creating content might be for you and your business.
Sam – “So, I used to hate content batching… I mean, I really hated it. Why? It seemed really inauthentic…I believed that the most authentic way to show up online was to do it at the time, on the go and in real-time. But I’ll happily admit when I’m wrong *gulp* and look, I was sorely mistaken.”
So first up, what is batching?
Batching is when you decide to create a big wad of content at one time with the intention of feeding it out over a period of time (a month, two, three, six months) and as long as you leave room for reactive material (like changes to Covid-19 restrictions, stock limitations, changes to delivery times etc.) it’s a great way for a lot of businesses owners to save time and get off the content creation hamster wheel.
How to start:
1. Set aside a day or two during your off-peak period and sit down with a pen and paper and jot down subjects and topics you would like to talk about throughout the next year. It’s also a great idea to take to the internet to find national/international days of interest that might work well for your niche. For example, some dates that we add to our calendar every year are International Women’s Day (Tuesday, March 8th, 2022), R U OK Day (Thursday, September 8th, 2022) and International Taco Day (Tuesday, October 4th 2022).
2. Take a look at your list and break it down into categories according to the types of content you want your following/customers/clients to see. For example, educational, call to action, behind the scenes etc.
3. Decide what platforms you want to use to reach your intended audience. Instagram? Facebook? Your blog? Email direct marketing? or the whole hog?
4. Start with a base. In my case I’ll usually write a blog and then break that blog up into bite-sized pieces and use it to inform our social media content (or sometimes I’ll start writing a big Instagram post and that will turn into the basis of a blog, like right now!). You might prefer to work with your visuals first and that’s cool, the best thing about batching is that there aren’t any hard and fast rules.
5. Once you’ve got all of your copy together it’s time to start building your visual content around that (or your written content if you prefer to work with your visuals first). It often helps to use a visual planner to do this, there are heaps of options available online so it’s really a matter of finding the right platform that works for you and finding your rhythm.
6. Take a look at what you’ve managed to create in those couple of days you set aside! Give yourself a massive pat on the back and then jump straight into scheduling that shit! You’ll be amazed at how far you can make your content stretch when you’ve got a plan for it in place.
So, now that you know how to batch your content you’ll be crafting content like a boss. All it take’s is a little planning, a couple of days and a great product or service (which we know you already have!).