Content Batching: The Best Social Media Trick

We're not going to sugarcoat it. Creating, organizing, and managing your social media content is a time-consuming task. And many of us don't want to spend the majority of our time trying to manage social media accounts! Luckily, there is a better way to managing social media. It's called content batching and we swear by it here at MeetEdgar. Here's everything you need to know.

What Is Content Batching?

Want a content creation method that will save you time and help you provide your customers, clients, and followers with even more consistently compelling posts?Content batching is exactly that.If you’ve ever made cookies, you’re actually more familiar with content batching than you might think.When you make a batch of cookies, what do you do?Chances are that you:

• Gather all your ingredients.
• Preheat your oven and follow the recipe to make the dough
• Place a set of cookies, not simply one single cookie, in the oven to bake.

Just like you wouldn’t bake one cookie in the oven at a time, you don’t need to make and post one piece of content at a time either.With content batching you can gather your “ingredients” (your topic, visuals, copy, and written content), combine them, and create content in related sets so that you’re creating consistent pieces for your audience to enjoy.

Why Should You Batch Your Content?

So, aside from the delicious cookie analogy, why would you want to batch your content?

It Saves You Time

Making a dozen cookies by baking each one in the oven for 12 minutes, one by one is not just silly. It’s time-consuming.The same thing is often true of content creation.If you don’t batch your content, you have to write one post at a time. Then you’ll head off to find a visual to go with it, add your brand colors, and schedule it.And then you’ll have to repeat that process for each individual post.Kind of exhausting, right? Good news, just like you don't need to bake just one individual cookie at a time, you don't need to draw out the process of creating content!Instead, you can batch your content creating space to complete one step in your content creation process before moving on to the next.The result?Time saved and more posts and content pieces created.

You Skip The Stress Of In-The-Moment Content Creation

Have you ever found yourself sitting down to write a post for a social media channel?Staring at that blank screen, wondering what to write can be agonizing.Sometimes you might even decide not to post or you might quickly pop something onto social media rather than taking your time to craft something more meaningful.And doing that daily can give you the false sense that you “don’t have anything new to talk about.”But when you batch write your content you can think about posts ahead of time and relieve that daily “gotta write” stress altogether.[easy-tweet tweet="When you batch write your content you can think about posts ahead of time and relieve that daily “gotta write” stress altogether." user="@meetedgar" url="www.meetedgar.com/blog/content-batching"]

It Keeps Your Content Consistent

The other benefit to the batching approach to the content creation process is that you will be able to keep your written and visual content super consistent.We’ve outlined a process below that takes you from idea to published using a batching method so that you can have both a consistent visual presence and brand voice throughout your content.Batching provides you with the chance to be really purposeful about your whole content plan because you’ll be focusing on one piece of that plan at a time.

How To Batch Your Content

Now that you know how batching will help you stay consistent with your content and save you valuable time along the way, let’s dive into the process we recommend when it comes to batching your content.

Take Time To Brainstorm Your Content

Set time aside just to get creative.Ask yourself:

• What do I want to talk about?
• What do my clients/customers always ask about?
• What anniversaries, holidays, sales, special offers, or other key events do I want to highlight?

As you answer these questions, consider the categories you created when you designed your social media calendar and draw on that from inspiration as well. (More on that here.)

Draft All Your Copy

Once you know what you want to talk about in your content, it’s time to write.The second step of the batching process is to draft all the copy for the content pieces you want to create.Whether it’s a set of Instagram posts, some Pinterest Pins, or some Facebook posts, take time to write the copy and content you decided to cover in the first step. Set aside time in your calendar, find your comfiest spot, turn off distractions and get to it.And if you’re new to creating content, don’t forget to set time aside to proofread, edit, and make any changes!Drafting your content in batches is the best way to keep your voice consistent and this process makes it easier to stay on topic if you’re batching by category.For example, staying fun and lighthearted while talking about a particular topic over the course of several posts becomes far easier when you write those posts right alongside one another at the same time.Plus it is the best feeling when you finish, sit back and realize you've created a month or more's worth of content done!

Create Visuals For Your Content

Now that you have your ideas and you’ve turned those ideas into content, it’s time to create some compelling visuals.The MeetEdgar Team uses Canva for our visual content creation. We love it because you can save your color palettes and your designs. This means you can create a template for certain types of visuals like Instagram stories and Pinterest Pins and use that template to create a set of visually consistent posts over time. This is especially helpful because your audience will come to know your brand colors and visuals when you keep them visually similar but still interesting.But there are plenty of other design tools to choose from! (Looking for design tips? Check out this post.)Batching your visual content creation also helps you to select visuals (photos, animations, infographics, etc.) that complement each other. So your audience won’t find that they clash with one another when you schedule them out.

Schedule Your Posts

Speaking of scheduling your posts, that’s the last step in your content batching process.Once you have your visuals and your copy, it’s time to schedule your posts. Using Edgar for your post scheduling means you can take all your batched pieces (your content cookie ingredients) and add them to your library. Then you can either use the continuous schedule so your Edgar sends your post exactly when you want or you can choose your time and date to post. Once you’ve added your posts into your library, you simply set it and forget it.Then you sit back as your followers, fans, customers, and clients enjoy your well planned, well-batched content while you enjoy a batch of freshly baked cookies (Or whatever you want to bake since you have plenty of time now that your social media content is created!)Need some help getting started with batching your content! Get some inspiration and download our social media swipe file with 20 social media post ideas!