Maintaining an active and meaningful social media presence is essential for businesses and entrepreneurs in today’s digital age. But if crafting one social post is time- and effort-intensive for an ordinary user, imagine how difficult it is for brands to push out content regularly. The hard truth is that creating relevant and high-quality content will always entail a lot of thought and work. But with a bit of pre-planning and content strategizing, social post creation won’t feel like pulling teeth. 

If you’re having a hard time conceptualizing new material or frequently racing against deadlines, social media batching may be the content creation technique to help you work smarter, not harder. Batching entails focusing on creating several pieces of content that follow the same theme, messaging, or process. So, instead of crafting each unique post (and its corresponding caption, descriptions, tags, etc.) one at a time, you create a “batch” of content that is within the same vein.

There are several ways to batch social media content, and a few important things you want to keep in mind. Let's dive in!

Psst! Don't forget to check out our blog on how to batch your blog posts.

The Advantages of Social Media Batching

Conceptualizing new content and executing these ideas into posts can be time-consuming. It can cause you to feel scatterbrained as you try to cover all your bases. Batch-creating your social posts leverages on momentum and helps you stay focused on the task at hand. This leads to a more consistent brand identity and cohesive brand feed.

It also helps you avoid rushing your content creation process, resulting in well-thought-out material. Because you’re conceptualizing and creating posts in batches, you should have enough social posts lined up in the pipeline at the end of the process. 

Tips for Social Media Batching

If you’re looking to restructure your workflow to batch your social media posts, check out these helpful tips.

Decide How You Want to Batch Your Content

There are different ways to go about this, and all are effective. You can batch by content pillar, by platform, or by task.

By Content Pillar

One misconception about social media batching is that you might create content that’s redundant or too similar to each other. This is where content pillars come in. The fact is that brands can’t just talk about anything and everything; they operate within certain themes or topics that are related and relevant to their identity and community.

Establish your content pillars by identifying the different subjects or themes that your brand can talk about or has consistently been discussing. Consider as well the topics that are relevant to your target audience, which are also in line with your brand identity. List down three to five pillars that you can cycle through so that your content won’t look too identical but can still maintain a cohesive feel. With clear content buckets, your target audience will develop a firm grasp on who you are as a brand and what they can expect from you. 

By Platform

You might find it easiest to group your social media post creation by platform. Do all of your Instagram posts, and then all of your Facebook posts, and so on.

This way, if you know that you need to create tweets, they all need to be the same character count.

If you know you need to create Instagram content, the images all need to be squares and you need to research approximately 10 hashtags per post.

By Task

Lastly, you could batch your social media posts by task. If you're in the mood to write, sit down and only focus on writing out your captions. If you're feeling creative, focus on designing all your images and videos.‍

Consider What Works on Each Platform

Remember that each social media platform is designed to serve different functions. Instagram is a photo- and video-centric site. Twitter is best for snappy, attention-grabbing text. Facebook is a reach-driving platform. Understand the best practices of each platform, as well as how audiences consume and engage with content on these platforms. 

Dive into the analytics of your previous posts to understand what has worked for you so far, and what hasn’t. You might notice that your target audience historically engages more with certain content formats. Perhaps they respond positively to specific CTAs. Comb through your DMs, FAQs, and comments section to see if there are recurring terms or suggestions from your followers.

Leveraging these insights will enable you to create more of what truly works for you.

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Craft a Content Calendar and Plot Out Your Posts

Once you’ve set the creative direction of your content, strategize the best time to publish it. Most social media platforms provide business profiles with analytics on the days and time slots that their followers are typically active. 

Plotting out your social media content prevents you from posting from the same content pillar consecutively, so that your followers don’t feel like you’re pushing the same thing every day. For example, if you decide to post promotional content on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, you may opt to put out lifestyle content, tutorials, or address FAQs on the remaining days.

When scheduling your social content, be mindful of the days of the week, as well as any upcoming holidays, paydays, and other events that may be relevant to your brand and target audience. 

Take the pain out of your post creation process through social media batching! It'll save you time and brain juice.

Feeling overwhelmed with your online presence? With a diverse range of expertise ranging from content creation to strategy and consulting, LSM can help take your digital footprint to the next level. To learn more, contact us today for a free consultation.