While it may have been an alternate approach for online growth in the past, for businesses today, content batch creation is an absolute necessity for success. 

 

Today, having an online presence is essential for almost every business, and as a result of the rapid increase of social media use, along with the rise of businesses looking to take advantage of social media platforms, the expectations associated with high-quality content have also increased.

 

Because of this, business owners, entrepreneurs, and content creators have shifted to strategically plan and mass produce their social media content further in advance, otherwise known as content batch creation. And, while implementing content batch creation into your workflow may require an adjustment period, it also comes with numerous benefits! 

 

So in this blog post, we’ll be giving you an overview on batch creating content, and how it can help you grow your business.

 

 

 

 

What is Content Batch Creation?

Content batch creation is an alternate approach used to produce social media content that better suits the needs of a modern business owner. As the name suggests, content batch creation entails gathering photos, creating graphics, writing captions, and scheduling your social media content in batches, as opposed to creating 1 – off singular posts on the fly. 

 

 

Why You Need to Batch Create Content

If you want to maintain a high standard of quality, while simultaneously keeping up with your competition, batch content creation is essentially a necessity for success. 

 

When compared to the organic approach to social media, which is oftentimes less curated and more reactive, batch content creation can give you the ability to more efficiently utilize your time and creative focus. Plus, by preparing your social media content in batches, you can better maintain a cohesive brand look and message.

 

Although it may seem counterintuitive for a business owner to prioritize social media, in the long run, focusing on content creation first will give you more time to later dedicate to other aspects of your business. This is because multitasking takes time to switch gears and regain focus… While on the other hand, batch content creation saves time by giving you the ability to hone in on one task without distractions. For example, let’s say that you run a sandwich shop. Grabbing your phone to take an Instagram story may not take forever, but it can interrupt your workflow, and these interruptions can quickly compound and impact your business. As the owner of a business, your time is a precious resource that you can’t afford to waste. So, instead of trying to juggle social media with your other responsibilities, finish it first. That way, you can maximize the amount of time you can dedicate to your day-to-day responsibilities. 

 

In addition to being more time-efficient, a batch content creation strategy also allows you to apply 100% of your mental and creative focus on operating and growing your business. Let’s continue with the sandwich shop scenario. If you were planning promotions and specials for the next quarter, you probably don’t want to get distracted and pulled away to take a pic of your restaurant patio…. Just as it takes time to switch gears and regain focus, it also takes mental energy to switch gears and regain focus too. But, if you were to batch create your social media content, you can minimize your need to create content on-the-spot. Therefore, by batch creating your content first, you can dedicate 100% of your focus on building your business

 

Lastly, batch content creation will make it easier for you to create cohesive posts that will build your brand. In addition to giving you the ability to best use your time and mental focus to run your business, by using a batch content creation strategy, you’ll also be able to best use your time and mental focus on building your presence online… In other words, by batch creating your content, you can apply your undivided attention to both operating your business, and creating effective posts for Instagram and Facebook. Continuing with our previous example, if you wanted to create a series of posts to promote the special sandwiches you’ll be serving next quarter, batch creating your content will make it easier for you to use cohesive photography, graphics, and captions. In contrast, if you were to organically create each post on the spot, you are significantly more likely to have inconsistencies between each of those elements. To put things simply, it’s a lot more challenging to create a harmonious Instagram feed when each post is essentially freestyled!

 

For every business owner, time and creative focus are incredibly important to handle the tasks and responsibilities of operating a business and creating high-quality social media content. And while it may seem counterintuitive, by using a batch content content creation strategy, you’ll be able to utilize both your time and creative focus as efficiently as possible. 

 

 

How to Get Started

While batch creating content means getting laser-focused on social media, it doesn’t mean that you should set aside a couple of hours to simply take a seat to wait for ideas to arrive. You need to prepare a strategy to create effective content!

 

So, the first thing that we recommend is creating content pillars. These are the primary topics that will guide the overarching themes of your social media content. So, if you run a sandwich shop, your content pillars could be:

 

• Your menu
• New items & special promotions 
• Current events
• Staff & company culture

 

By establishing your content pillars first, you can ensure that you consistently promote the most important aspects of your business. Without a set of solid content pillars, your social media content can eventually stray further and further away from promoting what defines your business! Or at the very least, you can end up over-promoting and under-promoting certain aspects of your business. For example, if you get carried away promoting your new menu items, you can easily forget to promote happy hour. 

 

After establishing your content pillars, we recommend that you establish your target market next. This means defining who your customers are, and segmenting them into groups based on their specific characteristics. By doing this, you can then tailor your content to better relate to your specific customers. For example, let’s say that your sandwich shop attracts a lot of gym-goers from the surrounding area. By segmenting this specific audience, you can better tailor your content to appeal to your healthwise customers. Alternatively, if your sandwich shop was located near a university, you could tailor your social media content to appeal to your student customers who are looking for a quick and affordable lunch. 

 

So, if you want to effectively batch create your social media content, you’ll need to define your content pillars and target markets before you get started!

 

For a more in-depth guide on creating an effective social media strategy, check out our previous blog post – here

 

 

Tips 

And before we conclude, here are some extra tips for you to keep in mind!

 

• Review promotions, special events, and holidays before you create content. After regularly batch creating your content, it can be easy to fall into a routine of promoting the same products and services that you have all year. So, to ensure you promote what’s most important, remember to review what you have upcoming in the next month.
• Keep a running list of ideas. If an idea comes to mind, it may not be the best decision to stop in your tracks to make content, but you shouldn’t just forget about it either! So, if something comes to mind, keep note of it so you can review it the next time you brainstorm.
• Keep an eye out for inspiration, you never know what can inspire you! Even if you run a sandwich shop, you might get a great idea from other businesses in completely different industries.

 

 

 

 

In conclusion, as a business owner, it may go against your natural instincts to put your day-to-day responsibilities aside to batch create all of your social media content. But in reality, by taking this approach as opposed to an organic one, you can more efficiently make use of your valuable time and mental energy without the lingering stress that comes with maintaining your presence online. 

 

Looking to save even more time by outsourcing your Social Media Management? We’d love to help! To learn more about our services, contact us.