Content. Batching.

Social media is a bitch.

I honestly think a lot of it is a waste of my time, because if I’m not careful, I scroll for AGES (guilty, as charged…) – time that I could be spending creating badass brands, and refining client websites.

Which is why I work with Tanya, who is an absolute gem (and who has two spots open for new clients right now, shameless plug. 😘) [UPDATE: Tanya is no longer taking on new clients… sorry guys!! Jan 2022]

But it’s ALSO why I content batch.

Benefits of Batching

Last week, in an hour, on Thursday, (I think?) I prepped all of my Instagram® posts for the remainder of this month. One to two posts a day, every day, until whatever day February ends on (time is an illusion, I never know what year is leap year).

And now? I don’t have to think about posting that content, at all! Which is great, because this weekend, I ended up fairly ill, and not a whole lot got done. 😅

Batching content is practical, in that it means when your focus is elsewhere (like on breathing intentionally and napping) – your online presence doesn’t suffer.

But when I bring this topic up, I tend to get mixed responses – a lot of which, are excuses as to why batching won’t work for you.

So I thought I’d collect the top five responses I tend to get, along with my zero-bullshit responses to them, and give it to you my absolute favourite way: straight, no chaser.

So without further ado: The top five reasons you’re not batching, debunked

1. “I just haven’t had time yet, I’ll get to it eventually.” Yes, that is how making time for things works. NEXT. Okay no, but really, I batched content for a month, in an hour. Two minutes per post, on average. Some of it was repurposed content I already had, but other posts were entirely new. You CAN make batching less time consuming, but that’s another post (hint: it’s scheduled for tomorrow, because this was BATCHED and SCHEDULED 😉)
2. “It takes me less time to just post as I go.” I like to respond to this excuse with a question: “Great! And do you find yourself posting consistently with that method?” If the answer is yes, you’re a unicorn, teach me your ways. If your answer is no (which is more likely), and you find yourself posting consistently for like three days and then forgetting…….. that’s not consistent content for your brand, and isn’t providing consistent engagement opportunities for your audience. Batching is more time all at once, but less time overall, and gives you the benefit of consistent content going out over the week (or month). But ya know, if you’re a unicorn, feel free to stop reading.
3. “I just don’t know what to write, so I only post when stuff comes to me.” This isn’t a batching issue, it’s an inspiration issue. But it’s also basically the easiest possible problem to fix. Content prompts exist for a reason, and I routinely use my own prompt set (you can get your own copy of my content writing prompts here ) when I prep my own content for batching. The prompts are in the form of questions you can answer, over, and over, and over again, creating new, interesting, badass content every time. And on top of that, when using prompts, batching is even easier, because you have ALL of the topics in front of you at once.
4. “I don’t have enough images/graphics/visual components to schedule that many posts at a time.” Easy peasy, no problemo. Batch your visual content creation too! When you sit down in Canva, or when you cull gallery images (if you’re a photographer) literally create a folder of items you plan to use on social media, and drop all of the visuals in there. Then when you get to batching day….. voila. Folder, full of goodies from the last few weeks, that you’ve conveniently collected for your intentional use. Easy game, easy life. 
5. “Scheduling my posts doesn’t feel authentic to me, I want my feeds to be free flowing.” This is my personal favourite, because this one comes back to my area of expertise: braaannnding for your business. Social media as a business tool for driving leads isn’t your personal social media. It’s your BUSINESS’S social media. Scheduling your posts doesn’t change the content of those posts, it just means they get to your audience more effectively, thus benefiting them more quickly. Your content is still authentically you. If you’re not a person who aesthetically plans the look of their IG® feed, you don’t have to. But that DOESN’T have to stop you from batch scheduling your posts. Because much like your logo isn’t about your own aesthetic preferences….. your business social media isn’t about YOU. It’s about your CLIENTS. And if they can’t learn what they need to learn from it….. it’s not doing its job.

I used to give myself these excuses too

If you can’t tell, I was feeling a little feisty when I wrote this one, mostly because I was batching at the time. And some of these excuses? They’re ones I’ve personally used.

I definitely used to tell myself I didn’t have enough time to batch my content.

I definitely used to tell myself that it would make my content inauthentic.

But in telling myself I didn’t have time… I allowed myself not to find it. And in telling myself it would be inauthentic, I allowed myself to batch shitty content I didn’t actually like, when I actually DID sit down to do it.

So as a tl;dr summary of this very lengthy post:

The excuses you’re allowing yourself to believe about content creation are stopping you from talking to your people.

The ones who want to buy things from you.

The ones who love what you do.

Who think the things you create are magical.

And listening to anything that PREVENTS you from talking to your audience more……. that’s you getting in your own way.