Montana Diaries Creative Business Blog
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26: 5 steps to systemizing your content strategy!
5 steps to systemizing your content strategy! We’re talking alllll about batching, friend.
“Instagram is no longer a photo sharing app.”
When head of Instagram Adam Mosseri said that via an IGTV video this summer, I watched as photographers freaked the eff out on photography Facebook groups, on their stories, and yepppp my DMs.
Sooo… I wrote a free guide for YOU, photog friend. This guide is a DEEP DIVE into video marketing for photographers — not only do I provide tangible, actionable strategy for batching video content for YouTube, IGTV, Facebook, TikTok, and Reels, but I take the time to discuss the WHY of it all. Aannndddd this isn’t one of those guides where I throw up information on you that you have no hope of implementing during your busy photo season — I’m a working videographer and photographer, so I freaking get the struggle to implement a content creation strategy. As always, I’m here to meet you where you’re at with what you have
5 steps to systemizing your content strategy!
psssttt…
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Let’s talk batching.
When I batch content, that means I’m aware of what I’m trying to DO with my content during the time period I’m batching for. I know exactly when I’m posting it and why I’m posting it. It’s brainless and emotionless by the time I actually post — soooo this helps me be process oriented rather than product oriented. When you’re process oriented, you’re carrying out the system without worrying about the result. If I were to create and post in real time every day, I might get discouraged by video views or other vanity metrics and not post the next day because my brain would say, what’s the point? Butttt since everything is done, I’m removed from emotions about the product and I’ll instead just focus on the process of carrying out the system. The content is batched and done — I just need to finish the process by posting.
WHY I BELIEVE IN BATCH CREATING CONTENT
So, to begin this episode on batch creating content I want to start by explaining a bit about WHY I believe so strongly in batching. I’ve tried it both ways, friend — I’ve flown by the seed of my pants with my business and I’ve batched and planned like a crazy person, and the second method is how things freaking get done.
I lack focus, I get really emotionally attached to results, and my mental health goes in wavessss and all of these things are a freaking recipe for disaster if there aren’t systems in place. Sooo what does it mean to have batching a part of your system? Batching is the process of grouping like tasks together and just getting them all done at once — so when it comes to batching content, this means producing a tonnnn of content all at once and having a plan for when it gets put out and what the purpose of the content is.
When I batch content, that means I’m aware of what I’m trying to DO with my content during the time period I’m batching for. I know exactly when I’m posting it and why I’m posting it. It’s brainless and emotionless by the time I actually post — soooo this helps me be process oriented rather than product oriented. When you’re process oriented, you’re carrying out the system without worrying about the result. If I were to create and post in real time every day, I might get discouraged by video views or other vanity metrics and not post the next day because my brain would say, what’s the point? Butttt since everything is done, I’m removed from emotions about the product and I’ll instead just focus on the process of carrying out the system. The content is batched and done — I just need to finish the process by posting.
So, productivity and systems and efficiency wise, batching is great because it’s a better use of my time. Mental health wise, batching is great because it removes emotion from the result and doesn’t require much energy when it comes time to actually post.
Next, we’ll get into the actual steps to batching content, and that’s also where we’ll talk about another benefit of batching — which is being super focused and strategy driven with the actual content you’re batching.
STEPS TO BATCHING CONTENT
I’m adopting a strategy that I’m adapting from one of my mentors in business, Amy Porterfield — she teaches to make 1 piece of original content per week, and I’ve found this serves me really well when it comes to serving my audience.
Define the time period you’re batching for — start monthly, it’ll feel more manageable — you can work up to quarterly later if monthly batching feels easy. So, basically, if you’re sitting down to write a month of content — that’s one per week, so about four pieces of amazing original content. That’s not too bad, right!?
Reverse engineering what we’re trying to sell — so basically defining our money makers and promotions that will be going on during the time period we’re batching for. Like, in July, I don’t think I’ll be trying to push my course much for wedding photographers because they’ll be in the middle of their busy season — it wouldn’t make much sense to target them, they’re too busy for a course. Instead, I might write content aimed at branding photographers.
Brain dumping ways to serve customers and potential customers — this goes hand in hand with the above point, obviously, but goes a little deeper into brainstorming ways you can SERVE the people you ARE talking to. If we go with the first example, I want to create content that serves brand photographers? Well, I could talk about ways brand photographers could be upselling video, how video helps their clients and would be attractive, ways to do it that won’t be much extra work, how they can position themselves as the expert for THEIR clients, etc. I would make a big list like that and you know what? A lot of the ideas won’t be good, but my page won’t be empty anymore and the rest of the process will be much easier.
Big piece of content > aim for 1 per week
Brain dump what goes into that piece of content — I’m working on having frameworks for mine, which I’ll get into later
Set a timer and write poorly!
Set another timer to edit
Have a system for repurposing those big, juicy pieces of content across platforms. That’s right — noooo more content made just for social media. Your piece of original content for that week can easilllyyyy be made into social media posts for the week that will work everywhere, with a little bit of tuning up.
hey, photog friend!
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