For photographers : What I learnt from batching and scheduling my Instagram Content
At the end of 2020 I sat down and batched all my Instagram content, and proceeded to schedule it, for the entire month of January, over the course of a couple days. This was my first time doing content batching to this scale, more than just a couple of posts at a time
Now I know as business owners, and photographers specifically, we have probably all heard the benefits of content batching at one point or another and downloaded some content creators spreadsheet which claims to be the ultimate guide to scheduling your content, which is going to solve all your problems and fix the world’s problems. I have to admit that I was in the camp who thought batching was a little overrated, I didn’t like the idea of sitting down to write all my captions at once and I thought I would come off as inauthentic. But then I sat down and I actually looked at my Instagram and I saw just how inconsistent it was, especially during the busy season, either because I didn’t have the time to post or I was lacking inspiration on what to post. It was seriously hurting my engagement and certainly wasn’t helping me reach my goals. So I thought, I’ll give this whole batching thing a try.
And let me tell you, I am a converted content batcher now, probably for life! This has totally changed by business and given me more time to work on other projects. I spend less energy on social media and am no longer worrying about the algorithm or being consistent because I know that my posts are consistently scheduled. But let me go through a step by step of my process and tell you a bit about what I’ve learnt!
Before you read on, let me tell you that I do all my content batching with entirely free programs! I don’t see the need to pay for apps like Later or Planoly when Facebook Business Suite has an awesome scheduling feature, for both Instagram and Facebook.
Pick your images intentionally
I can’t stress this enough! If you are taking the time to produce the content, and think of a great caption, your images need to be the best of the best, and fit with your caption! I spent a long time just haphazardly selecting an image to post, for no particular reason, but this does absolutely nothing to benefit your business. At the very best you won’t be reaching the people you want as your ideal client, at the worst, you will actually be attracting the wrong clients to your business. Your images should show the best of your craft, and reflect the kind of work you want to produce!
Go with the 60/30/10 rule for captions
What is the 60/30/10 rule? Well, it’s the rule I try to live by when it comes to Instagram, 60% of your captions should be lengthy, engaging and prompting something from your followers, 30% should be engaging and lengthy but not necessarily prompting and 10% can just be filler captions, that aren’t engaging or prompting. While it would be great if we could have engaging, length and prompting captions 100% of the time, this is a bit of an overachiever goal, at least for me and I like to keep my goals realistic. But what exactly does it mean to prompt your followers? You want them to engage with you, by liking, sharing or commenting. It can be as simple as “double tap if you hugged your horse today” or something less superficial like “if you’ve had a session with me, comment with your favourite memory from that day!”. At the bottom of the blog, you’ll find a download with some of my favourite captions, specifically for equine photographers!
Plan out your feed
If you check out my Instagram Feed you’ll see that I plan out my Instagram feed along a checkerboard grid. This is very intentional and I think very carefully about how images and colour schemes will fit together when planning my feed and my posts. Now you might think that your feed doesn’t matter, since most people just see your posts while they scroll but it does matter a lot for converting people from hashtags and other sources. When they click on your profile and are thinking about clicking that follow button, which is what we all want, they are going to be looking at your feed! You’ve already put a lot of effort into picking the best of the best of your images, it only takes a bit more effort to arrange them in some sort of order and it will make a big difference in showcasing your creativity and artform. Any sort of ordered feed will immediately draw the eye of the viewer and hopefully result in them being intrigued to see more and follow you.
Post consistently and at a time when your audience will be active
Hopefully, you already have an Instagram Business page, if you don’t I highly suggest you get one! With the business page you are able to see the most active times of your followers and schedule your posts accordingly. To view this, head to your profile page, click the 3 lines in the upper right corner and click Insights. From there, head to Audience, See All and scroll to the bottom of the page. Giving your content the best opportunity to be seen by as many people as possible is going to greatly increase your engagement, so posting at an active time is very important. What is even more important though is consistency. You don’t have to be posting every day, but it should be almost that frequent. I have posts scheduled for usually 5 days of the week, always at 6pm because this is when my audience is most active. The algorithm rewards consistency, so if you keep up with consistent posts, you will notice increased reach and engagement over time.
Focus on your engagement
This last point I would argue is the most important. Don’t feel like just because you have put all this time into scheduling your content that you can sit back and ignore your Instagram. In today’s world, if you want to beat that algorithm and get your content seen by more people, it is all about engagement. Take that extra time you saved by scheduling your content and sit down every day or couple days and scroll through your feed, liking posts, commenting on people’s posts, and interacting with your followers. It can feel tedious sometimes, but remember that you aren’t just working to make Instagram’s algorithm work for you but also to create a sense of community with your followers and potential clients and that they will appreciate your interaction with them and it will put you at the front of their brain, potentially converting them from follower into paying client! Engagement with your audience is your #1 free tool in your social media toolbox, so use it, use it some more and even when you think you’ve used it enough, throw a bit extra on there for good measure!
