How to save time and create social media content

There is no denying that content creation is time consuming. You need to think about what you need to post, draw a graphic picture, write a caption, select hashtags, post the content and participate in the comments with your audience – and then do it all over, over and over and over again.

While the challenges of creating social media content can feel daunting, it consistently holds great benefits for your business to turn up. By consistently posting valuable content, you can:

• Let your audience grow
• Increase brand awareness
• Build authority in your industry
• Improve engagement

If you want to achieve any of the above benefits, it is worth devising a sustainable strategy to save time planning and create social media content. The key to achieving this is twofold – advance planning and creating group work.

Multitasking – A Cautionary Tale

Let’s take a moment to talk about something we all do – multitasking. Multitasking often feels productive because you do “all the things”, but in reality, multitasking is one of the least productive things you can do.

It is estimated that only 2% of the population is actually proficient in multitasking. When you switch from task to task, it actually takes 50% longer to perform a task. (John Medina, Brain Rules).

“Only 2% of the population is actually proficient in multitasking.”

So, what is the 98% of us who should not do skilled multitaskers? The answer – when it comes to creating content on social media – is to create a system and group work. Below is a process you can repeat each month to save time planning and creating your social media content.

Content planning process

Spend time each month mapping out your social media content for next month. By outlining the content topics you want to cover for the entire month, you can look at your content from a higher level and be more strategic about your content plan. Plan to spend 1-2 hours each month mapping out your content for the next month.

Plan to spend 1-2 hours each month mapping out your content

Things to include in your content plan:

• Number of posts. How often do you post (or want to post) each week? Keep in mind that quality and consistency are more important than the number of jobs. Stick to a schedule and frequency that you can maintain in the long run.
• Goals. What are your general business goals for the month? How can your content support these goals?
• Any important dates. Do you have a new product or service starting, or an opportunity? First, link them to your plan so that you can fill in supportive content around them.
• Social media holidays you want to “celebrate”. Are there relevant social media holidays you want to celebrate on your social platforms? This list have a good summary of these types of vacations, or you can always research the specific species for your industry.

With this content plan you can enter the month with confidence and know what content to create each week (more on this later).

What types of social media content should you create?

One of the biggest challenges when it comes to social media content is knowing what to post. When creating content for social media, it is important to share a variety of types of content. Your content should educate, entertain or sell.

Below are some examples of businesses balancing content that educates, entertains and sells.

Bullet Free (@bulletproof)

Bulletproof balances entertainment, education and sales very well in their content. They highlight their products, share recipes and answer questions and create funny, relative GIFs.

Shopify (@shopify)

Shopify shares inspiring personal stories from their customers, encouraging conversations and engagement by asking questions and sharing video content with ‘how’ and ‘why’ motivational life hacks.

Flodesk (@flodesk)

Flodsesk highlights new features, sharing tips and best practices for email marketing, and encourages audience engagement by asking “this or that” and “would you rather?” questions.

Another benefit of planning your content for the entire month is that you can better distribute and plan the types of content you are going to share. Instead of scrambling to think of something to post and potentially posting too many sales-oriented posts or too many funny memes, you can plan ahead to be more intentional and strategic with what you post. This ensures that you hit all the points that build the knowledge, and trust factor in your audience, serve them and ultimately transform them.

Suppose you want to share four posts per week. To balance your content types, you can share two educational posts, one sales-oriented and one entertaining post each week. As you plan your content month, you can start inserting your content ideas according to the cadence and flow.

Bonus tip: This step of the process does not have to be high technology. Simply use a monthly calendar (you can add one to Print-a-Calendar.com if you do not have one) grab some stickers and a pen and start writing down your content headings. With this process, you can move things as needed to better balance and distribute your content. Alternatively, you can plan in digital form on a Google calendar or in software such as Asana, Trello, of Cickup. Choose the tool that suits you best so that you are more likely to use it.

When planning content, it is important to remember that content does not have to be too complicated. Actually, anything can be satisfied if it is valuable to your ideal audience. Share your knowledge, take your audience behind the scenes, introduce your team, share testimonials or customer reviews, answer frequently asked questions. Know that you have insight into what your audience longs for – they told you so when they chose to follow you.

Streamlining content creation with group work

Let’s return to group work and how to apply the tactics to content planning.

What does Batch work?

Batchworking is a very focused, topic-specific form of work. When working in batch, divide your work into different hours / days and focus on only one thing at a time. Batchworking can be applied to all areas of your life and work, but here we’ll focus on how you can use it for content creation.

The idea is that you can focus on one task at a time flow state this is when your productivity and creativity really flourish. The end result is better quality content in less time. A win-win!

Step 1: Plan a month of content

As outlined above, the first step in planning and creating social media content is to map content throughout the month.

Assuming you have your monthly content plan and roadmap ready, follow the steps below to streamline the piece of the puzzle each week.

Step 2: Create all visual content

Decide with your content plan the visuals you need to create for the week. Write a list of everything you need for stock photos, personal graphics, videos, rolls, covers, etc.

Once you have the list, it’s time to start creating. You can use a tool like used for custom graphics Canva. Create (or buy) a library of templates that you can easily customize each week with different content. It keeps your brand consistent and also saves you time instead of starting every week from scratch.

Step 3: Write all captions

Captions do not have to take long to create. By merging captions and following a caption formula, you can quickly write captions that transform your audience. A good caption should include the following:

• Hook: Draw their attention immediately. Think of the first 7-14 words of your caption as an email subject line. You need to inspire your audience to click on “read more”.
• Value: Deliver what you promised in your hook, and share content that educates, entertains or sells.
• Call to action: Tell your audience what you want them to do next (ie share, like, comment, click, buy, sign in, tag, etc.). Keep your calls to action simple and fun to increase the likelihood that your audience will follow.

Step 4: Post posts

Now that you have your footage and captions, it’s time to schedule your posts according to your content calendar. Use Buffer’s Publishing tool, go to Settings and set your placement schedule.

Then navigate to your queue, drag and drop images and copy / paste captions and click “Schedule Post” or “Add to Row”. Depending on the type of posting, you will automatically post your message at the scheduled time, or you will receive a push notification to post yourself at the scheduled time.

Step 5: Add Hashtags (if you post them on Instagram)

If you post a message on Instagram, you also have the option to post up to 30 hashtags at the first comment of your post. Buffer’s hashtag driver enables you to save hashtag groups directly on the platform. This makes it easy to choose the right hashtag group (s) to add to your message. When used thoughtful and strategic, hashtags are a great way to increase the reach of your content.

Enjoy the benefits of pre-planning and planning your content

Imagine that you do not have to constantly wonder, “What should I post?”. As you become accustomed to pre-planning and planning content, you will see that your efforts are bearing fruit. Not only will your content strategy benefit you, but you will also save time and reduce stress around social media content. Instead of ‘just posting to post’, you can use a content grouping routine to create high quality content when you’re in your ‘content zone’ and plan it according to your social media strategy.

By planning content in advance, your content can better support your overall business objectives. If you have a product or service that you want to promote, an event or a milestone of a business, you can plan ahead to work backwards to create strategic social media content that supports these goals.

Finally, by freeing up time and energy in content creation, you allow yourself to spend more time in other parts of your business. That extra time can be spent building connections and relationships with your social media community, or in other parts of your business, such as sales, administration tasks, networking or growing your team, or even self-care. Think about what you would spend the extra hours on each month, and use that as motivation to stick to your new content process.

Social media is a powerful tool for businesses. By planning ahead, you can utilize social media strategically and thoughtfully.