So, what is content batching?

Content batching is a term often used for queued up production of all types of content including blog content, social media posts, video content, newsletter content, into a cohesive editorial calendar and posting schedule.

When it comes to content batching, the idea is that you are preparing all of your content ahead of time, and then simply scheduling it for delivery in the future, where each piece of content is delivered once per day/week/month.

The more prepared you are with this kind of batching system, then the more efficiently you are able to produce content on a consistent basis.

 

Why bother with content batching?

Content marketing is pretty much an essential part of your marketing arsenal these days. The question however is how to do it, and perhaps more importantly, how much content should you actually be producing each month?

When you think about this for a moment it becomes clear that what you really want to do is have as many pieces of content as possible scheduled ahead so that they are ready to go at any time. This allows you to scale your content production and also be able to capture those peaks in demand.

As a business owner or marketer, creating content consistently can become an all-encompassing and demanding process, often falling to the bottom of our to do list.

An effective content batching process can allow you to plan an entire month or even a year’s worth of content in advance while giving you time to take focus and take advantage of trending topics.

Create content in advance to prepare for those elusive spikes in demand and to save yourself time, and then schedule it all out into the future.

 

Benefits of content batching

Save time! – Batching solves the question of what content to create, saving valuable time.

This is the obvious advantage that everyone thinks about when it comes to batching their content.

Create a uniform brand voice – Once you have created your queue, you can see what topics and contents will be going out when which means you can plan your posts to sound similar across all social media platforms.

This allows your content to come off as more well-researched and uniform.

An improved workflow – Your new batching workflow will be your new norm for content creation, which means it will become easier for you to find time in your day to stay on top of social media marketing and keep up with the ever-increasing demands of your audience.

Content batching allows you to:

• Keep up with content creation on all of your social channels
• Kickstart the creative process of content creation
• Create quality content across all social media platforms
• Create consistent content that aligns with the overall business strategy
• Have content ideas organised into a content plan to share and refer to
• Create content to post consistently and at the best time
• Drive traffic and improve your online presence with SEO
• Maintain relationships with your target audience
• Deliver a uniform brand voice across all channels
• Save time!

 

What is actually involved with content batching?

Firstly, there really is no right or wrong way to batch content.

There are many ways you can go about this process depending on how much automation you want to employ as well as what type of content you want to produce. Content batching basically means setting aside time to focus and complete similar tasks in a batch, in this case, it means preparing all of your content in advance in a queue for publishing.

We will go into more detail about each part of the process of batching content below, but essentially you would have to look at all of the steps involved including topics, research and brainstorming ideas, drafting posts, scheduling them and then uploading them to your various social media channels.

Other important considerations include how you will choose which topic/post goes out when, as this is often a very manual process where you have to constantly be tweaking the schedule on a daily basis.

 

Key steps for your content production process:

1. Plan ahead – Ensure that you have a plan for your content calendar so that you don’t forget or miss any key pieces of content in the pipeline. This means keeping track of all of your ideas, topics and drafts.
2. Brainstorm useful content – Spend time brainstorming relevant, valuable content that will add value to your target audience in a way they want to receive it.
3. Review and refine – As you produce the copy for any given piece of content, review and refine it over and over again until you are sure every piece of content is on point.
4. Batch Content! – Create drafts for any given piece of content, taking care to tailor the content specifically for your target audience and industry.
5. Schedule dates – Post dates are often the most complicated part of batching your content. You want to find an optimal time slot that will ensure you get the best engagement possible without overcrowding your audience’s feed. You also want to avoid times where you or one of your competitors may be posting content that might potentially clash with yours. Using a tool like Sendible can take away much of the manual work involved in scheduling posts across all social media channels, as well as provide analytics and insights into how your posts are performing over time.
6. Schedule ahead – Save time and effort by scheduling posts in advance, allowing you to knock out a bunch of content in one go. This way you will be able to plan your day around batching tasks such as updating images and creating graphics, which can sometimes take up a lot of time if done manually.
7. Be sure to review analytics – When it comes to scheduling, make sure you review the analytics of each post you schedule. This will allow you to tweak your schedule and know when is the best time for your target audience to view specific posts.
8. Make it a habit – Scheduling ahead of time is crucial for the success of your content, so make sure you have routines in place to ensure your posts are always up-to-date.

Pro-tip: Batching your content also means batching tasks like updating images and creating graphics. Try using a tool such as Canva that will simplify these tasks, allowing you to get your work done faster.

 

What types of content can you batch?

The good news is that you can use content batching for any and all types of content! A good batching system will allow you to schedule individual pieces of content as well as large collections of different types of content, such as infographics, writing captions, or designing Instagram posts.

This kind of content creation process allows you to reduce the pressure of creating content every day, and if organised properly, also allows you to reuse some of the content that has already been created.

This in turn means less work for you overall!

• Blog posts
• Social posts
• Email Newsletters
• Video content
• Design work
• Promotional content

 

Content batching tips

Here are my best tips for batching your content, once you start with some of these you’ll never look back.

Use an editorial calendar to organise your content batching strategy

You’ll want to get a good idea about exactly what types and how much content you need to create in a month, this could be for your weekly newsletter, monthly blog post, social media posts etc.

The more the better – but plan ahead because when it comes to creating batches of content, time is always of the essence.

Save ideas for content topics

Here’s the best part about content batching, you can save all of your great ideas for later! When inspiration strikes, you can be ready to hone your creative energy to refer to later.

 

What are content pillars?

Content pillars are essentially themes that you can use to plan, batch and deliver all of your content. This makes it easier for you to create the best content possible by aligning it with your overall business strategy.

To the extent that it fits within your niche, it’s a good idea to align your content pillars to the interests of your potential customers.

 

How do you organise social media content?

Social media content usually falls into themed bits of content, such as quotes and tips for your target audience. A good way to organise this is with a theme per day.

This means creating 12 different pieces of social media content from 4-5 themed groups each month.

 

How do you organise blog post batches?

Blogging can be a time-consuming process, but you can make it much easier on yourself by planning ahead and batching content. I recommend planning out your entire month in advance and then batching your blog posts based on the day of the week that they fall into.

This means you’ll be able to plan who’s going to write what for each day and keep everything uniform.

 

How to get started with content batching

If you’re ready to get started with batching your content, there are a few simple steps you can take.

Set up your editorial calendar

The first thing you need is an editorial calendar, and then everything else will fall into place. This will serve as your content to-do list!

Decide what content pieces you will produce regularly and your publishing schedule. This will help you to keep track of every piece of content that needs to be created as well as potential topics for consideration.

Choose the right tools

I’ve got some great tools to recommend for all sorts of different types of content, some are better than others depending on your niche and what you’re trying to achieve.

Get started creating content!

• You can set aside time for filming content for Youtube, Instagram or Reels.
• You can write several blog posts at the same time for publishing once per week
• Create a weekly newsletter in bulk using tools such as Flodesk
• Maintain a content calendar filled with different types of content and social media posts to share at a future date

 

Generating new content ideas

Content planning and batching is a great way to generate new content ideas. With dedicated time allowed to immerse yourself in the creative process, you’re bound to come up with some brilliant ideas that you wouldn’t otherwise have thought of!

Use sites like Answer the Public or Sparktoro to research trending topics and ideas that people are searching for.

When writing new content, try and keep in mind the news and trends that your target audience may find interesting. This will allow you to stay on top of current events and provide relevant information for your target demographic.

Inspire yourself with the right type of material, keep up to date with industry news and trends and check out what your competitors are doing for inspiration.

You can also add in things such as quotes from other sources or even use your own advice in posts written by you under

 

What are the right tools for the content batching process?

Airtable – One of my favourites! This is a great tool for organising everything in your life, but specifically all your different types of content.

You can organise everything from an Instagram post to a blog post and even export to .csv for importing to your social sharing platform.

SmarterQueue – Whether you’re planning, scheduling and publishing all your content at once or creating one piece of content over the course of several days/weeks; SmarterQueue is a great tool for tracking everything.

Using features such as ‘content ideas’, you can refer to past posts that were effective and gather inspiration from them to create new pieces of content.

Flodesk – Flodesk creates beautiful emails and forms and offers various automation to help build your email list. This is a great tool for creating weekly newsletters. Instead of writing one newsletter at the end of each week, you can write several in bulk and schedule them in advance.

Canva – This is one of my favourite image editing platforms for creating images to be shared on social media. It’s really simple, but it does take some time to get used to – so if you’re not familiar with the system it will seem like a huge barrier.

 

Time to get batching

Batching your content is an important part of creating a successful marketing plan.

It can be hard to keep track of all the different types of content you need, but it’s worth investing the time upfront in order to save more time in the future. The right tools will help with planning and scheduling new pieces or content that are ready for publishing at any given moment.

Once you’ve collected everything into one place, it’ll be easier to maintain consistency when generating new ideas!