Today I’m going to share with you three tips for how to plan and batch your content.
Tip number one. First of all, you’ve got to put it in your schedule. If you want to sit down and batch content, and by the way, what I mean by batching content is kind of doing what I’m doing right now. When I record these videos, I sit down and record all four or five for the month in one shot. I feel like if I’m going to do my hair and makeup, and do all this fancy stuff, we’re going to do it all at once. Right?
So, number one, you’ve got to put it in your schedule. And I have to admit, I’ve been guilty of this, I’ll put it in and then it gets moved around, you’ve really got to treat it like an appointment. So if you want to sit down and batch content, whether it is video content, podcast content, writing blog posts, whatever it might be, you’ve got to set aside some time. And your time can’t just be recording it. You have to give yourself a little bit of a buffer. So if you think, “Okay, I can sit down and record four videos in, let’s say an hour,” give yourself two hours, just because you don’t know, you know may need some extra time to do your hair, or you know, whatever. You need to do a few takes, whatever that might be.
Same thing with blogging. Right? Maybe we get interrupted by an important phone call. So give yourself ample time. Now, the more you do this, the more you batch content, the more you write, or create, or do videos in bulk, the faster you will get. The more you’ll be able to do just one take of a video versus six. The more you’ll be able to write an entire blog post in 20 minutes versus an hour. So the more you do it, the better you get. But number one, you’ve got to schedule it, and I really recommend scheduling it the same day every month. So if it’s the 10th of the month, the 20th, whatever works for you, just put it as a recurring appointment in your schedule. So that’s number one.
Number two, you’ve got to have your tools ready, and keep it simple. So your tools are basic. I recommend some sort of microphone for audio, but to be honest, if you’re recording inside a lot of times just the audio that you have on your iPhone or Android, a lot of times it’s fine, as long as it’s quiet wherever you’re recording. But get a simple microphone. The second thing is you want to make sure you have some sort of tripod or some place to steady yourself. Have that ready, and be ready to go. And then, along with your tools, is make sure your lighting is okay. So I’m facing a window right now. I have tons of natural light. I also have another light behind my camera, which helps. You don’t have to get super fancy. Have it ready and available, so you’re not scrambling at the last minute. Also, have your chargers ready just in case your phone is dying.
So, number one, schedule. Number two, have the right tools. And number three, you have to plan ahead with your content. You can’t batch content if you’re sitting down and then you start thinking, “Well, what am I going to write about?” When you batch content, the reason why this works is because you already know what you’re going to talk about. The way that you do this is you’ve got to really brainstorm a list of topics. You want to have a list of 20, 30, 40, maybe even 50 topics, but at least 20 or 30 topics. These are things like things that you get asked all the time. Some of the simplest things that you feel like, “Oh my gosh, doesn’t everybody know this,” when it comes to your specialty. No, people don’t know.
Brainstorm a list of your content, whatever it might be, have that list available, and then take it a step further. We use a simple Google document. We have a Google spreadsheet, where we have every single blog topic loosely sketched out. By loosely sketched out, I literally mean just a few words. I don’t have anything scripted, but I have all of the content there, so when I sit down for an hour to an hour-and-a-half, to two hours to shoot video, I can look at my list. I know what I’m going to talk about.
I might write a few notes down, a couple little bullet points, and then I’m ready to go. Have a plan. You really have got to take some time ahead of time. I like to do this at the end of the year. Every December we get our whole team together and we brainstorm the 12 months’ worth of content we’re going to create in the next 12 months. It’s a huge undertaking but it’s so worth it. And, of course, things get changed and moved around, depending on what we want to talk about.
By having it planned out, by having it in my schedule, having the right tools, and then having a plan makes a huge, huge difference. Let me give you one more bonus tip. You guys know I love the bonus tips.
The bonus tip is, if you can afford it, have someone else who can help you a little bit, just finish it up. Right? By finish it up, I mean maybe you hire a virtual assistant for a few hours a week who helps with checking your grammar, or just reading over your blog post and copy-editing. Or maybe you hire a video editor. We have an awesome video editor who’s editing this video right now, and she does an amazing job for us. Just making things, you know, putting that bow on top, making it look fantastic with music, and videos, and all kinds of fun stuff. If it’s in your budget, get a little bit of help to really kind of fluff it up, make it look how you want it to look.
All right, so that’s my three quick tips plus a couple bonus tips for batching and creating content. And we talk all about this because in 2017, and 2018, and beyond, it is all about not just a social media strategy, but a content strategy. What does it feel like to work with you and to get into a consistent rhythm? You’ve got to have a system.
All right, I’d like to hear what you think. Leave me a comment below. If you liked this video, we would love if you would like, comment, share it with somebody that you know, share it with a friend, share it with a colleague, share it on Facebook, get it out there. We’d love for you to help spread the word!
