Batch Creation without Losing Engagement

Let’s talk about batch creating and how it can help you even if you're concerned it may be limiting the engagement of your brand.  You can do batch creation without losing engagement with your audience.

What is batch creation?

Batching is creating a set of content at one time and then leveraging that content for the future.  I love batch creation and think it’s one of the biggest assets we have as small business owners.  Many things we do in our day to day operations as business owners, like dealing with customers or on-demand delivery of products and services, cannot be batched.  However, marketing can be batched if we think about it in advance and schedule it out appropriately.  So what are types of content that we can batch create?

Batch create videos

I suggest to many small business owners to create more video.  Creating video is a perfect thing to batch.  I record many of my instructional videos in advance.  I also record videos live, in real time.  But not all videos need to be live.  I use a software called restream.io. Another software called Be.Live works on several platforms like Facebook. Be.Live allows you to go live on multiple platforms or record videos in advance that you can post as live videos.  Maybe you are uncomfortable going live or will be on vacation at that time, so batch creating these videos in advance will help.

However, there is some advice out there saying it’s a bad idea to batch your live videos since live videos should be live.  Personally, I recognize that all of that advice is actually a function of people who are trying to build a brand that is a personal brand.  If you're trying to grow your own name and trying to monetize yourself, you probably want to go live. But if you are a small business owner and you're monetizing your business and going live every other day may be untenable.

You may just want to create a non-live video that is prerecorded in batches.  It is something I've done successfully in the past where I've recorded 25-30 videos in one weekend. I'm a big fan of one take videos. One take videos are where you start the camera and you just talk.  As a small business owner, I don't have time to be creating content non-stop for my social media, for my blog or my website.  So I will record an entire quarter or half a year worth of content in one or two weekends.  It requires a lot of planning.  But I have my team that does post-production for me.  They take the content I’ve created and edit it, make it pretty and ready to be posted on my social media platforms.  

Batch create social media posts

I also batch create my social media content.  I’ve created around 25 blog posts at once and then scheduled them out on my blog.  Also creating images to go with your social media posts can be batched.  I like to use Canva or RelayThat software to create 20 social media images at once. I then upload them to a scheduler like Buffer to be posted to my accounts in the future.  Batching this content creates consistency in the message and look of the posts.

You’re not losing engagement

One of the issues that I want to address is that batching will lose engagement. Many people don't want to batch create or schedule their content because they feel it’s going to make them seem less authentic to their audience.  You can do batch creation without losing engagement with your audience.

From years of using this technique for clients and myself, it is not true. You can be present when the content goes out and engaging with your audience in the comment section even if you have batch created your content.  Batching allows you to have a consistent social media presence without taking up too much time on a daily basis to post here and there.  

Batching does not change your engagement in a significant fashion at all. There are some people who have anecdotally experienced a change in their engagement as a results of batching.  Batching allows them more time to answer the comments and engage more with their customers.  

Be consistent with batch creation

Stop posting to social media on the fly because if you're posting one-off posts plus running your small business, essentially you have given yourself two jobs.  I have several side gigs in addition to running my business and if I didn’t batch create my content and schedule it out, my social media posts would inconsistent.  

Actually, consistency wins every time. If you're concerned about batching, batch for consistency.  Every single social media platform wants you to do it anyway and it doesn't matter what type of business you run. 

Your time as a small business owner is very valuable. Batching actually gives you the ability to leverage your time. Leverage your time, okay?  I encourage you to batch create your content, whether that be recording videos, creating images in Canva, writing blog posts, whatever it is, batch it!  Because you have a small business to run, right? Remember, you can still do batch creation without losing engagement with your audience. Create your content in advance and upload it to a scheduling software, and let marketing be a part of your business, not your whole business.