I know you have a lot on your plate, which is probably why you need help with your content creation. But creating content for social media isn’t your strong suit, it can be a time consuming process that leaves you overwhelmed. In fact, sometimes I feel so overwhelmed that I don’t even post.
So I thought, there has to be a way to streamline the process and save time. And there is! My friend and podcast buddy Lora Shipman has a trademarked process that is going to be a game changer for you. It’s called Batch and Slay™!
Shannon Baker
So I’m so excited to chat with today’s guest. This is one of my coffee loving biz besties you all hear me talk about all the time, Miss Lora Shipman. I am so glad to have you on the show today!
Lora Shipman
I’m so so excited to be here! Thank you for inviting me on. It’s gonna be great!
Shannon Baker
Yes, it is actually long overdue! I can’t believe it’s taken this long for it. Well, for me to have you on because I’ve been on your podcast. So today, Lora is going to share some tips. She has a specific signature method called Batch and Slay™ which I love the name of her method! It’s trademarked isn’t it Lora?
Lora Shipman
Yep, I have a little trademark there!
Shannon Baker
Awesome! Wonderful! So before we dive in and talk about how we can save time by batching our content creation, tell us a little bit about yourself, your background, what you do for our audience.
Lora Shipman
Yeah, sure. So I’m a social media manager and consultant and a fellow podcaster. So I manage a lot of different companies and industries’ social media profiles. And so that means researching the content that goes out there, creating the graphics, writing the content and scheduling it out. So there’s quite a few and I do it all by myself.
I’m a one woman show. And I like it! I enjoy it! And it’s my passion. Just writing content for me is fun. So that’s basically in a nutshell what I do. I also do some one on one consulting for people who want to learn how to level up their social media game. And I focus mostly on the top three social media platforms. So that would be Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn. So everything I bet we talk about today is going to be centered around those three with my Batch and Slay™ method.
Shannon Baker
Yes, you are going to love these tips. So of course, the key word in this episode is batching. So tell us a little bit about what a batching process looks like.
Lora Shipman
Yeah, so I had to develop something. Because if you imagine, I work for my own 12 or more clients at a time. And so for me, I didn’t want to be sitting in front of my computer, just creating content, like all the time, because it would kind of stunt my creative outlet. So what I did is I had to figure out a system so that I could create everybody’s social media content, almost a month in advance. Actually almost every single client I have, we do it a month in advance. And so I thought what would be the best way to do it? And so what are some of my clients I write blogs for?
So when I first developed this batching system, I used one piece of pillar content to kind of drive the ship and that would be the blog post. And I recommend a lot of people maybe start here because it’s really good to blog for your business. And I know sometimes people sit there and go, oh my god, I have to think of something to write. You know, for my blog, this is a way to get you disciplined to do that.
So what I do is I think about what is the theme for the month, and I’ll pick so for let’s take February, for example. There’s like an overarching theme, which might be love, for example, because of Valentine’s Day. So if you can weave that into your content, that’s a fun way to do it. March, you might pick luck as your theme for the month.
So there’s two ways I batch. So for my clients, what I’ll do is I’ll figure out what their theme or what their focus is for the month. And then I’ll write a blog post on that focus. So for example, let’s say I have a client and they post three times a week. Usually there are four weeks in a month. And so that comes down to 12 posts. So I know, I need to write 12 posts for the month. So what I’ll do is I’ll think about what that blog topic will be, and how I can get maybe 12 paragraphs out of it. Maybe I can get 12 tips out of it. Maybe I can get 12 pieces of a framework, although I won’t say that’s a 12 piece framework, because that’s a really big framework, but you get my drift. Like there’s 12 pieces of value that I’m going to weave into that blog post. And this is kind of where repurposing comes in.
So I’m thinking okay, so now I’ve got that outline, I know I have to come up with 12 posts. I know what that theme is going to be for my client or for myself, and I’m going to make sure I have 12 pieces of content weaved into that blog post. And then I’ll write that blog post. When that blog post is written. I’ve proofread it, read it and everything. Now it’s time for me to create my social media content. And what I’ll do is I’ll look at that, and I’ll pull out those 12 pieces and create many posts out of it that will fit really well into Instagram, Facebook or LinkedIn.
Once I have those 12 written pieces of content done, then I’ll go over to Canva and create a graphic that matches up with with those 12 pieces that I’ve pulled out. And then all of a sudden, I’ve got 12 posts that are ready to go! And I can schedule them out on social media. So that’s one way I tackle it! And then that’s the batching part of it. And a lot of people will sit there and they’ll say, well, gosh, how long does that take you to do? Because that’s like, it sounds like it can be tedious. For I think for a business like one business like for you, Shannon, if you just set aside maybe one to two hours of just writing time. I think that’s doable once a month instead of piecemealing it out, because I think it wastes your time piecemealing.
Shannon Baker
It does! And the key of course, you know I’m a big time blocker. So while I don’t necessarily do a month at a time, I do allocate in my schedule specific time blocks where I focus on my content batching. Now mine doesn’t start with a blog post. But I do that process for my podcast. So it’s you know, let me block this time, I’m going to come up with my topics based on my theme for the month. And then it goes from there. And then I take my actual podcast recording the screen transcribed version, and that turns into my blog post. But then I still have to come back and do the batch of now how can I break all of this down and repurpose it to use it on social media. So yeah, definitely putting that into your schedule, like you say, because otherwise, it can be overwhelming. And we know if it feels overwhelming, we tend to put it off. Or we just kind of wing it, which is why we don’t get success. But your method, what I love about your method is you can take the pieces of it and kind of customize it to what works for you as an individual.
Lora Shipman
Yeah, and so there’s some science that backs this up a little bit. So if you, so I want to imagine you’re in your car, and you’re stopped at a red light, and the red light turns green. So you hit the gas, and you’re trying to get up to that cruising speed of, I don’t know, 50 miles an hour, 55 miles an hour. It takes a lot of energy to get your car to get there. And it’s not very efficient for your car to accelerate to the cruising speed, right? But once you hit that cruising speed in your car, your car becomes more efficient.
Well, your brain works kind of the same way. And that’s why batching is so important because what happens is, and this is why I do my written part first. I stay in that written zone for a while in that first post or that first sentence or that first paragraph might be really hard and slow. But once you get into that rhythm in that zone, it comes a lot quicker. So when you first sit down to either write your blog or your posts or something like that, it might be a struggle, but just ride that wave through. And then really try and stay focused without interruption. And then toggle over to graphics, because then your brain is gonna switch into bracket, graphic mode, and to create graphics is going to move a lot faster, too. So I try and avoid toggling back and forth.
Shannon Baker
Oh, yes, you know, I’m not a fan of jumping from task to task because as you said, you have to, you have to shift your brain and then the time it takes for your brain to adjust, you actually lose time. Because it’s like, wait a minute, it’s like slamming on the brakes on your brain and then like throwing it back in gear and expecting it to be able to take off.
Lora Shipman
Yeah, so I think so. And then so you brought up a good point, like you don’t write a blog. And so I know a lot of people don’t write a blog, so maybe this, oh, let me start with one piece of content in and try and create a batched amount of work. I have another system. It’s also the Batch and Slay™ system, but it’s for people who don’t write blogs.
So the way I look at this is I think of, I asked people to write down four or five topics inside their business that they want to be known for. And so then what you do is you figure out what that is for your business. So if you’re an aesthetician, someone who does facials, let’s say you want to be known for anti-aging, reactive skin like rosacea, stuff like that, acne. I’m trying to think of two more. So but you get the drift. Like you come up with all these different skin conditions that you want to be known for as the authority and plot that out on a calendar.
So each of those, whether it’s a four week month or a five week month, you have four or five pillar topics that you can talk about. And so I literally do that on and like looking at, I don’t know if you use the video or not from our segment. Now just Okay, so I’m looking at a paper planner. And it’s done by the month, right. And it’s a month at a view. And so for each week I write down ok, pillar topic for week one is going to be this. Pillar topic for week two is going to be this. Pillar topic for week three is going to be this. And week four is going to be this. So what this does, when you focus on a pillar topic per week, your audience gets to know oh, Lora really knows about social media analytics. She’s posted three times this week about social media analytics, she might be the go to person for that.
Instead of sending a bunch of different messages to your audience about different topics within your business, that’s like a BB gun effect, like you’re all over the place, the precision is that they’re your audience, you’re training your audience to get to know you for certain specialties. And then you become that go to person. So when I Batch and Slay™ this way, what I do is I create a topic for each week of the month, I pick three days of the week to be business type posts. So for example, the first week of January for me was I focused on hashtags. And so I did three posts, surrounding hashtags that first week, and then the other two posts during that week, or maybe something about me or something fun, or some sort of engagement posts that I did with my audience. So it’s not just like business business business all the time. So does that make sense? How I broke it down week by week?
Shannon Baker
Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Because you have to have a strategy, like you mentioned! Like, our audience may hear word phrases like your content pillars, for your business pillars, or you know, Allison Scoles, our usual coffee buddy, and biz bestie. She calls them content buckets. So it’s like, what do you want to be known for? I can see you start with that. And having that piece of information has really helped me to focus on okay, I want to be known for systems and productivity. So these are my four categories.
And then like you mentioned, everything we post doesn’t have to be a business. That’s just so corporate, so to speak. Social media supposed to be fun! So varying the type of content that you share, you can share tips, but it can still be done in a practical way. And you can post like the intro, like we all do this, I see some new faces. Tell you a little bit about myself. Or I love some of your, this or that kinds of fun. Those are fun! They’re really fun!
Lora Shipman
It’s good, because it just gives people a break from the daily grind. Right? So if you can play a game with them and interact with them and make yourself memorable for having fun with your audience, I think I think that goes a long way.
Shannon Baker
Absolutely! So what two characteristics would you say are needed for someone to be able to Batch and Slay™ their content?
Lora Shipman
Yeah, I think the first one is to have the discipline to sit down and do it. I think that’s really important. Because if you can’t carve that time out for yourself to do it, it won’t get done. And then the other one is patience. And I think that you have to be really patient to see the process through. And like I said, when you’re first accelerating your brain, like that car, it’s going to take some time before you get to that cruising speed. And so if you can have those two things, I think it would be great.
Shannon Baker
Okay, so those are good, definitely discipline! Yeah, I use that word a lot, too. Because I know, setting up systems isn’t fun, but you have to have the discipline to sit out and just get it done so that you can focus on all the other stuff that you want to do. Now, the other question I have for you, you know, it’s one of my favorites, what are some of your batching tools that you would recommend, and I know what one of them is gonna be.
Lora Shipman
So I use a bunch of different tools. And I think one of the first ones I use to get me started is Trello. Like, I love Trello, because I love the mobile version of Trello. Because when I’m walking, I walk every morning, and usually I’m listening to podcasts or listening to YouTube videos, and those generate ideas for me, right. And so I have my phone with me. And so I’m just jotting down ideas for future thoughts. So that’s one of them.
Another one that I use that I think for me, it’s just really important is Google Drive. I love it! So I’ll use Google Docs. And I’ll separate out each week of the year, you know, for my posts, and I’ll just like write everything in a Google Doc. Now for me, I use that too. Because sometimes I have clients like I have a family law attorney, that I use that I just, I’m not a lawyer. So I don’t want to misrepresent her and say anything wrong. So I like using a collaborative tool like that. So she can see what I’ll do is I’ll batch all of her stuff at the beginning or the end of the previous month. You put it up in Google Drive, and I’ll say, okay, go take a look at all four weeks that are there for February. Go check those out. And she’ll approve them.
And same thing, I have a naturopathic doctor who’s the same thing. I can assume things and I can do research. But you know, sometimes it’s not 100%. Right. So I love that there’s a couple other tools I use for scheduling. Actually, there’s three I’ll talk about. The first one is Facebook Creator Studio. Absolutely, that has been a game changer for me! Like I can’t even tell you. So um, the reason why I love Creator Studio so much is because you can schedule both Facebook and Instagram at the same time. And that counts for carousel posts, and it counts for IGTV, all of that stuff. And so it’s a game changer, it just saves so much time.
Another tool I use is Hootsuite because I do have a lot of clients who are on LinkedIn. And I’ll set them up on LinkedIn. And I’ll schedule posts out using Hootsuite. And then the third tool I use sometimes is Cinchshare. And I’m able to post to Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn through there. But because I manage so many clients, it’s just confusing to do it there for so many people. But those are the three tools that I really go to, I’m trying to think if I’m missing any. Did I name the one that you use?
Shannon Baker
Well, I was gonna say Trello.
Lora Shipman
It’s just a favorite of mine, I love it.
Shannon Baker
Yeah, and I love it too because you can house it or you know, you can set it up the way that works for you. So I always get tips from a bunch of people. I mean, I know a lot of people that use Trello. And while their method may not work for me, I always grab an idea that I can tweak and use for myself. And I know one that you recommend especially when it comes to using hashtags is to create your hashtag buckets. So inside of my Trello board for all of my social media content that’s already been created, I have a list that is all of my hashtags by category. So that way, you know, like you said, when I’m on my phone, or on my laptop, I can just go in there and grab the categories that go with my posts. And I don’t have to think about oh, well, what if I want to, you know, tag working moms or get access to them via hashtags, I got to think of what all of those hashtags are. They’re already put together in there. I just copy and paste it in, put it in Creator Studio and hit the schedule button. And I’m done! It’s so fabulous!
Lora Shipman
Yeah, and Trello is good! Like, I used to be a notebook person, I still am a notebook person. But I would take notes and write down ideas and stuff like that, and brain dump stuff on notebooks. And then I would lose them because I was always flipping through papers, trying to find that last note. Trello is amazing! I have a category for everything over there. You know, like a board for everything over on Trello so that I don’t forget anything.
Shannon Baker
Exactly! And I have one of those lists as well! And it has like a board and then it has lists inside. So there’s a running list with all the ideas. And then once a month, or if I don’t get to every month, at least once a quarter I go in there and look at the ideas and kind of evaluate what I want to do with them. So then I have additional lists that I kind of categorize them in because if I don’t do that, of course, you know, the list will grow and grow and grow. And it’d be too many ideas. But that way it lets me know, do I need to take action on it? Do I need to push this off until later? Or some of them I look at this like what where in the world would this even come from? And why did you think this was a good idea? So that goes into my list for forget about it. So it helps me sort them so that I know, you know what action to take on them next.
And I do have a question for you based on one of your tools because I want to do more with LinkedIn this year. But you know, LinkedIn doesn’t have an internal scheduling feature. Now, I tried Bitly. But I don’t like the way that the links look when it actually posts. So with Hootsuite, when the posts go live on LinkedIn, how do the links come across?
Lora Shipman
So you can do it one of two ways. The links come across as a full link like if you pull it from your website or something like that, and you could just leave it in its natural form, or it also has a shortener there. So I think it’s called owly. Well, that’s their shortener. And it’ll shorten the link up. So that’s mostly used for like Twitter. If you’re going to be in Twitter, and you want to link shortener, and you’re counting cat category categories, oh my god characters. I was gonna say calories and I had to stop myself. But yeah, so with LinkedIn, you have quite a few characters that you can use that you don’t always need that link shortener. So I very rarely use it. But yeah, it’s there if you need it.
Shannon Baker
Okay, I used to use Hootsuite way, way back in the day. I don’t want to date myself by using too many way olds. Of course everyone kind of developed their own schedulers, especially Facebook. And then now we have Creator Studio. So there wasn’t really a need for me to use Hootsuite much anymore.
Lora Shipman
They have a pretty robust free version. So if it works out well, I think you have up to 30 posts for free. Anything over 30, you would need to buy some sort of a subscription with Hootsuite. So if you’re doing three posts a week, which most of my clients are doing, it works out perfectly. Yeah,
Shannon Baker
Yeah, that’s good to know. And you can also connect it to your LinkedIn page because I have both split between the two. So that’s definitely good! I’ll look into getting back into using Hootsuite. It has been great! Those are great tips, especially for the time starved who want to do more with social media. Batching, if you haven’t gotten the point by now is the way to go.
So one tip I would definitely say or takeaway for everyone is just do it! Just develop the discipline, even if you only blocked 30 minutes a week, just to get started. That’s better than nothing! And it will make a huge difference. But how would you say, well, knowing you have so many clients that you manage accounts for and you’re active, your accounts are active on social media. So how would you say batching your content and even for your clients has made a difference in your business and your personal life?
Lora Shipman
Oh, my gosh, it’s huge! So first off, it streamlined my workflow. Like it just, it just kind of cleared up things on my calendar. So I can do special projects, and things and passion projects and things that I really want to do. So I wouldn’t if I didn’t batch my content and my client’s content. I think I would be a slave to my computer. I probably wouldn’t have been able to hop on the show with you. I wouldn’t have time. I would be panicked, pulling my hair out. And after I get off this with you, I have to go run errands.
So it’s like I can have freedom and flexibility in my schedule. So I’m not tied to my computer. So that’s number one. Number two is for the personal side of things. Again, it’s that freedom and flexibility. And I know it sounds weird, because you might be thinking to yourself, yeah, but I’m blocking off two hours of time, instead of doing it sporadically throughout the month. It’s so focused and concentrated, that once it’s done, it’s done. And all you’re doing is popping back in just to check the temperature of things like respond to comments, share things out, whatever it is. You’re not a slave to your phone or your laptop, for your social media. So that means you can be with your family, you can binge on Netflix at night, if you want to. You can cuddle with your fur babies! Whatever it is that makes you outside of your business, you get that freedom back. And that’s what I love about it most! There’s not this pressure sitting on my shoulders all the time, because I have to be creating content or always in content mode. That’s the other thing too, because you can get content fatigue, trying to come up with information and something that’s valuable. And the next thing you know what, you’re just posting something just to post and all of that stops when you really have focused time to create the content you need.
Shannon Baker
Yeah, and what I found also for myself is it clears up mental space. Yeah, you want to do all the other things because if you are like you said in constant content creation mode is mentally stressing. Therefore it blocks out anything else that you want to do. So being able even if you just start off batching your content for just one week. And you get that freedom then you do it another week. And you like it, increase your time…you get addicted to having that free space. And then as you mentioned, you can now, where you may have been spending really three, four plus hours creating content, you know, bit by bit. If you add it all up, you can take half of that and break it up and get more engagement. Be more engaging online, interacting in stories on Instagram or creating reels, you know. Being in Facebook groups to build your community and make connections. So it’s like it opens up the room for so many things that will benefit your business. And just in life, or maybe because, you know, we make connections online, but until you really engage with each other, you don’t really know each other. And for us, we’ve known each other two plus years.
Lora Shipman
I was gonna say years, like, the s on years!
Shannon Baker
We’ve never met in real life. But because we talk to each other through stories, or you know, video chats or different things like that, it’s like we’ve known each other forever,
Lora Shipman
I would think like, so of all the people in our group, like, I think if I were to, like, bump into you, or see you somewhere in person, like we would just kind of pick up from where we left off, like good old friends. And I love that feeling! And I know that the friends and the connections that I’ve made on Instagram and things like that have been invaluable. I mean, I can go to my social sisters anytime I need to and say, “Hey, ladies, what do you think about this is?” you know, and I love that. And so those connections, they mean so much. And you’re right, being able to batch like, that frees you up for that space that maybe you didn’t have before!
Shannon Baker
Yeah, and another great thing, when you have batched content, you don’t have to recreate. You can look at and I know one of the things you talk a lot about is look at your analytics, your insights into how your content is doing online. And all the stuff that your audience really likes, just redo the same content and present it a different way. Or if something didn’t go, well, maybe you know, repurpose it a different way and try it again. But unless you look at the information, you don’t know. So you really can recycle! Same content over and over again.
Lora Shipman
Absolutely! And then one other thing that I loved, this is pre-COVID times, we would travel a lot, my husband and my family and I in our favorite thing to do would be taking cruises. And the reason why we like that so much is because you know, for the most part, you can get Wi Fi plans. And we usually do but for the most part, you’re disconnected from social media and from but it’s still going automatically for me in the background. So I could, you know, drop out of life for about, you know, 7 – 10 days and not worry about if I had content going out on social media, because I did so.
Shannon Baker
Yes, that’s definitely good. You can take a vacation!
Lora Shipman
Yes. And just be completely disconnected. Which is awesome!
Shannon Baker
Yeah. And I love that too, it’s like the beaches for us. I live vicariously through you when you used to take your cruises all the time. But I love like when we take family vacation to the beach like you said, my content posts automatically. Yeah, I would hop on, you know, every once in a while to check for comments. And really just to look and see what everyone else is doing. Not even, you know, looking for a lot of engagement back. But I love stories because then you get to see what’s happening with all your friends. But you don’t have time for that if you’re constantly stuck in “Oh, well, I need to post tomorrow.” Well, what am I going to post? But if it’s done, then you can focus on something else.
Lora Shipman
So yeah, and it keeps you working! It keeps you from working in your business. Like if you have your content done ahead of time and all of that you can work on your business and grow it like you should be your business should not be social media, that’s my job is to be right, you know, you should be working on your business, get being creative, and figuring out what it is that’s going to help your business grow.
Shannon Baker
That is true! And the great thing with Batch and Slay™ you know, your method is if we approach all of the work we have to do in our business with the same type of method, it just frees up so much real time and space. And as I said before mental time and space, because you’ve got that, that focused energy right there without breaking your train of thought. So you don’t have to shift gears and a lot of people, some people will do the Pomodoro method. You know, I time block in two hours, one to two hour chunks.
And I allow myself breaks in between there so that I can refresh my brain and move around and kind of come back and then start on the next thing. But all of it requires discipline in order for us to be productive and make an impact with things that we’re doing. So these have been great tips Lora! And you actually have some valuable resources that you’re going to share with our audience today. I’m going to drop a link to it in the show notes. But tell us a little bit about what they can find there.
Lora Shipman
There are so many gems! So Shannon has the link and I have so many different like calendars, checklists, processes, all the things that you would need to help you get through social media and do it effectively and have the time to Batch and Slay™ your stuff as well. Other thing I’m working on, I didn’t mention to this this to earlier, but I’m going to work on a Batch and Slay™ day. So sometimes people need, like the accountability, just a team of people who are there and we’ll have time together. And we’re all going to be working on our social media. And then it’s done. Like it’s done! So I’m excited to announce that too! So that will be on the resource page as well when it’s ready.
Shannon Baker
Oh that sounds awesome! That is really good! Accountability makes a difference when you need to get things done. So awesome! I can’t wait to share all of your goodies with my audience! So they can get more tips like these and even more from you online. Where can my audience find you online?
Lora Shipman
Yeah, I like to hang out on Instagram. So I’m there most of the time. And my handle is @Lora_Shipman. Lora is L-o-r-a underscore Shipman. So go find me there and then I’m on Facebook. Not as much in them on LinkedIn too. But I spend a lot of my time on Instagram.
Shannon Baker
Oh, and one thing you didn’t mention, be sure to check out Lora’s podcast the Lora Shipman Show because she also you can pop in your earbuds when you’re on your walk and get many, many, many more tips. And she does like mini tip episodes like tons of things that will help you with your social media. So make sure you connect with Lora online. Drop into the DMs and let her know that you connected with her from this podcast episode and engage and start batching your content so that you have time to do that. So thank you for sharing these tips with us today Lora!
Lora Shipman
Thank you for having me! This was so much fun and I hope everybody goes out there and batch in slays!
Shannon Baker
Yay, me too.
Click below to hear my chat with Lora, in episode 73, on your favorite platform.
