In this post, I’m going to tell you how to save time on your content with a method that has saved me countless hours. I am also going to talk about how to keep your social media productive.
BATCH PRODUCE YOUR CONTENT
This method has saved me countless hours not only taking photos and filming videos but also creating thumbnails, graphics, video and live outlines, and blog posts.
Why you should batch your content The fact is that life happens. If you’re reliant on natural light to shoot you can go weeks without a sunny day, equipment can break, emergencies pop up, and batching your content will keep you prepared, weeks, or months ahead of time.
This post that you’re reading right now was written over a month ago, the graphic for it was made two months ago. All of my Instagram live stream ads are made at least a month in advance.
If you’re all set up to take a photo or shoot a video, why stop at one? You may as well keep going.
BLOCK TIME Filming, taking photos and creating graphics takes time, and batch producing content takes even longer. Blocking a few hours or even a whole day to batch will allow you to get a lot done and keep your energy up.
Remember that producing content always takes longer than planned.
BE PREPARED & DO YOUR PRE-SHOOT CHECKS Make sure you have all of your gear set up and ready beforehand because lens caps and dysfunctional mics can ruin a shoot and take up a lot of time.
Make sure your lens caps are off, mic is working, you have enough storage for the content, outlines prepared, your set is clean and ready and if you’re filming videos, keep a few changes of clothes nearby to give the illusion of each video being filmed at different times.
Keep a checklist of everything you need to do before you can actually start shooting.
Power Tip: Outline your content beforehand. Have scripts or basic outlines for videos with main points and certain b-roll shots you want to get. You can do this for photos too by listing what you want to get photos of. Check them off as you go.
Having everything outlined and set up before you start your shoot day will save you hours of time in the long run.
AFTER THE SHOOT - KEEPING YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA PRODUCTIVE
After batching a ton of content and editing it, you don’t stop there. What you should do now is go through and queue, schedule and draft upload all of it to its corresponding platforms. Many of the platforms you’re using have features that you can use to your advantage to keep content rolling out and working for you while you’re not working.
Tumblr has queue, scheduling and draft features that you can use to keep content moving at a constant rate and to post things at specific times on top of queued content.
YouTube has unlisted and scheduling features that allow you to leave videos for you to quickly switch to public or to drop all on their own at whatever time you want.
Instagram has a drafts feature allowing you to leave posts ready to be uploaded at a moments notice. Once a post is drafted it is an incredibly quick process to post it.
Twitter doesn’t have these features as the platform is more about ‘the moment’. For posts that aren’t random thoughts I simply write up the ads in the notepad app built into my phone to be quickly copied and pasted when I wish to post them.
Queuing and scheduling posts for specific times will save time and save your posting schedule if you happen to get called away around your usual posting time. Drafting features like that of Instagram mean you can stockpile content to easily access and post within a few seconds.
All of these features will help you to save time and stay productive with your content production and social media.
FREE BATCH DAY PLANNER PRINTABLE
This printable is very basic version of how I set out pages to plan my batch production days! (More sleek, minimal, and in depth versions coming soon)
Click HERE to download
I hope you found this post helpful and if you did then don’t forget to give it a like and reblog to help others electrify their influence too!
