From reactive to strategic

Social media is no longer a maybe for business — it is a must. It is a way to stay in front of your customers during slow seasons, promote your products and services, and reinforce your brand values and commitments.

It can be tough to get into a habit of posting regularly to social media.

Although posting to social media can be daunting, one approach can make this task easier: batching. With batching, you decide ahead of time what you will show your followers, rather than stressing about creating the perfect post on the fly.

Preparing the framework

Batching social media takes some initial preparation. First, create a simple annual calendar to highlight times and events you will definitely want to post. You will want to make a note of key holidays, local events, promotions and sales, and seasonal shifts in your business.

Your calendar doesn’t need to be perfect. It just needs to give you visibility into what is coming up.

“With batching, you decide ahead of time what you will show your followers, rather than stressing about creating the perfect post on the fly.”

You will also want to decide several parameters for your social media strategy, including which platform(s) you will use and how often to post. Consistency matters more than frequency. It’s better to post three times per week consistently than seven times one week and nothing the next week.

Choose a scheduling tool that can help you prepare posts. Meta Business Suite is a great free option if you are sticking to Facebook and Instagram.

The batching process

With your framework set, it’s time to start batching social media posts for your business. It’s best to batch no further out than monthly so you can stay relevant to any changes in your business environment.

Step 1: List your goals. Decide your overall goal for the month. Consider, are you:

• Driving foot traffic?
• Selling through specific inventory?
• Promoting an event?

This is where batching becomes a growth-strategy. When you have a clear goal, your content becomes easier to create and is more effective toward reaching your customers.

Step 2: Set weekly themes. Break your month into simple themes to guide your content. If you’re wanting to promote an end-of-summer sale, you could try something like this:

• Week 1: Summer winding down
• Week 2: Tease the sale
• Week 3: Launch the sale
• Week 4: Last call

Having a weekly theme breaks down your goal into a structure. Instead of trying to decide what to post each day, you already have the direction set. It also provides a running throughline for your customer to follow. Rather than random posts floating on your Instagram feed, you guide the customer to a place, product or event of your choice.

Step 3: Write the posts. Want to save time? Write all your posts for the month in one sitting. Draft captions, gather your photos and pair them together in a simple Word document.

When you lay it all out, you start to see the full picture of what your customer experiences and quickly spot gaps in your content or images.

Use this time to assess if you have enough product photos or if you may be repeating the same message too often. Instead of reacting daily, you are building a strategic plan.

Step 4: Schedule the posts. Set your posts to publish ahead of time using your scheduler. This removes the daily pressure of posting and ensures you stay consistent, especially during peak season or busy events.

Don’t forget to add your next batching time to your calendar. Schedule batching for the next month around the last week of the current month to give you time to fill in any photo or information gaps you might have.

Step 5: Review what worked. Before starting your next batch, take a few minutes to review. Which topics, products and types of posts got engagement? Which posts drove traffic or sales? It’s also equally important to recognize if any posts fell flat.

You don’t need a deep analysis for this, just enough to improve for the next round.

Building a habit

If batching seems intimidating, start small. Try batching posts for one week at a time, and then eventually build up to batching posts for one full month at a time.

This process gets easier the more you do it. You can work with your best employee to help you do it or do a piece of it, such as taking photos for the posts or helping write posts that you review.

And once this process is in place, you can hand it over. This is how you step out of the weeds and start to scale. Your social media doesn’t need more creativity; it needs more consistency. Batch it, schedule it and improve it. If your marketing demands your time every single day, you don’t have a system — you have a ceiling.

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Melissa Steadman runs Moonbridge Consulting, where she helps founders plug their revenue leaks and focus on sustainable growth.