Cookies aren’t the only thing you can make in batches. If you’re a small business owner, batching your social media content is a powerful way to save time and get your social media calendar organised. As a freelance writer and digital content manager, batching social media content for my clients has been a total game changer in terms of productivity. It also helps if you’re about to go on a break, and want to set everything up to let it run while you’re kicking back with wine! Below are my personal tips for batching #likeaboss.
What is batching?
Basically, batching is scheduling a set amount of time into your day or week or month to work on the same types of tasks. It’s a great way to keep up to date on regular work and the frequency of batches will vary depending on what the task is. You may choose to batch your social media or a weekly basis and blog content on a monthly basis. Responding to emails would likely be a daily basis.
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You block out a chunk of time just to work on that one task. For example, you might decide Tuesday’s from 3pm – 5pm you’ll dedicate to scheduling the next fortnight of social posts.
Benefits of batching social media
Updating your business social accounts is something you’re probably aiming to do daily or every second day. Finding the right image or content to share, drafting a caption and pushing it out to
your different social media accounts each day takes up time. Batching the work allows you to execute your social media strategy more simply and clears your mind of having to think about that task every day for the next 2 weeks, or however long you’ve batched for.
Of course, you can still be spontaneous! If you see some awesome content to share, post it and just move what you had pre-scheduled for the day. It also leaves more time for networking and engaging with your social community once your content is curated and scheduled. Some people even batch work for months in advance, like blocking 3-4 days out to write the next 4 months worth of blog content and schedule them for self-publishing.
Batching is also the opposite of multi-tasking. Multitasking kills productivity and wastes time, continually switching between a bunch of different projects and tasks. Laser focusing on one type of task for even a few hours will save you time in the long run. I write blog content and manage social media for a range of clients in different niches from natural skincare and personal development to investing and move out cleaning. I find when I batch work and focus on just one topic and one client at a time, it speeds up my work rather than continually switching gears back and forth on topics during the day.
Tools to help you batch social media
There are some great scheduling tools out there to make the process of batching content simpler. I personally use Buffer to batch social media posts for clients, it’s a paid tool that allows you to pre-schedule content to be pushed out to various social platforms; Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Pinterest.
With Buffer you can share the same posts across all platforms or adjust the content depending on the channel. I also use Schedugram for some Instagram accounts I manage, which has a great visual planning tool. I love that it allows you to layout your posts before scheduling so you can see what the feed will look like. Of course, you don’t need a paid tool if you’re just scheduling Facebook posts, you can do this within your business page for free.
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Quick note – I don’t receive any affiliate income from the tools I recommend above.
Other batching tips
- Once you’ve decided when you’re going to get your social scheduling batch-fest on, I have a few more tips that can help you get in the zone:
Unplug from personal social media. Log out of your email and switch off your phone. Culling all distractions during your batching session can really boost your productivity during this time. - ‘Mini’ batch all the tasks within the process. For example, first, you might find and resize all images, then design any quote or branded posts, followed by locating another type of content to share. Write all captions and then lastly load them all into the sharing platform.
- Set a clear goal. Define what you want to achieve in your batching time. 2 weeks of social media posting? 3 weeks? A month? Get clear on the goal and work to complete it within the timeframe you’ve set for yourself. The great thing about batching is you can apply this method to different areas of your business; blogging, commenting and networking on social media, invoicing, generating new business leads, website maintenance; whatever you like. The power of batching comes from applying focus to one task, so it doesn’t really matter what it is.
I hope these tips help you get onboard with batching your social media, I think you’ll find it’s a real game changer!
Elesha Piper is an Australian freelance writer and digital content manager for solopreneurs and small business owners. She writes on a range of topics from natural skincare and personal development to investing and end of lease cleaning. She’s also a minimalist and lover of fries.
