As the busy healthcare practice or business owner, content batching is key to saving you time while promoting your business on social media in 2023. And if this time of year has you planning to grow your health or wellness business to support more people, social media is going to be important to reaching that goal, whether you enjoy it or not.
Key to successful social media marketing so that you stay top of mind for your target clients is showing up. It means no longer posting sporadically in 2023. It means creating consistent social media content instead. The easiest way to do this in the least amount of time is content batching.
Because let’s be honest: you didn’t enter your health or wellness business to waste time scrolling on social media. And yes, social media for any health or wellness provider can feel overwhelming. But what if instead, it feels like an opportunity? Consider this: sitting in your office or home right now, you’re able to have a conversation with your exact target client or patient. You can build a relationship with them without ever even meeting. If you focus on the “social” part of social media marketing today, the “media” part feels like less of a burden.
Content batching, where you create the bulk of your social media content in one fell swoop, makes the effort to reach your target audience a lot easier. The time you spend on content batching adds up to significantly less than it takes to create one post at a time.
Start with content themes to make content batching easier
The easiest way to start with content batching for 2023 is to pick content themes that work for your business or practice. Start with 5-7 content themes and then work on creating content for one theme at a time. This way, if you create 5 posts that are variations of one theme, you already have one post per week for 5 weeks. This takes time at the beginning, but the more you do this, the faster you will get.
Following are some themes I recommend to every healthcare practice or business owner:
Frequently asked questions: Consider the questions you get all the time from your clients or patients. If you find yourself repeating a certain explanation more than once, chances are more people need to know your response. FAQs are a great source for a content theme.
Hashtag holidays and themes: There are countless hashtag holidays that relate to every health and wellness industry. These are a great place to start for content batching. You can pull every relevant hashtag and create all the posts your audience needs for 2021. This could add up to dozens of posts. (Grab my healthcare hashtag calendar that syncs with your Google calendar here.)
You: Your interests, personality and what sets you apart should absolutely be one of your content themes. When it comes to health and wellness providers, many people choose your services over your competition because they like you. This means being authentic by showing your personality and what it’s like to work with you is a part of your brand in 2021, whether you like it or not.
What this doesn’t mean is that you have to cross your comfort zone or any boundaries in your work. You can share parts of your personality and interests without revealing anything you wouldn’t say to a patient or client in the office. Share what it’s like to work with you. Share ways your experience or insights are different. Share books that have helped you grow or think. Share an interest that’s personal but not private–like healthy cooking, fitness or work/life balance.
How to keep your audience in mind as you batch your content
It’s important to remember to always keep your audience in mind as you create your content. Even if you are posting about a story that relates to your life, you want to share it in a way that’s universal to your audience. Ask them if they’ve ever experienced the same feeling or incident. Ask if they can relate or how they would have reacted.
One way to make sure your content is relevant to your target audience is to think of the one favorite client or patient you work with and speak directly to him or her in your post. Is what you’re sharing interesting to her? Would it help him? Think about how you would say this thought to that ideal person, and write it in that voice.
3 steps to batch your content
Once you have your content themes in place, you’re ready to start batching content. Content batching is simply setting aside times where you focus on creating a bunch of content at once. This ensures you’re productive during the time you work on your online content and rescues you from ever staring at a blinking curser.
Collect notes on the go: Whether on your phone notes or you’re kickin’ it old school on an actual notepad, start jotting down content ideas you come up with on the go to create a running list. An encounter with a client, a quote from a book or movie or a problem you overcame in your life or your business can all be sources of inspiration. These ideas are more likely to come to you during a workout or even in the shower. Add these content ideas to your list so you don’t forget. I’ve even found myself with an idea on the go when I didn’t have a chance to write it down, and I instead thought of an acronym or a trigger word to help me remember later.
Set up a brainstorming session: Reserve a 2 hour session on your own or with your team to create several weeks’ worth of content ideas. This should be a total brain dump where you think of every possible idea you can. Whip out the post-it notes and use the whole pack. For each idea you think you might use, develop a short abstract or an outline so that creating that actual content later is easier. Try some of the ideas I list below for inspiration, including the notes you’ve already collected.
Mark your calendar: Creating consistent social media content means working consistently on content. And like the shoemaker’s son, you’re less likely to work on your own business when you have clients’ needs to meet. That’s why you’ll need to proactively reserve 2-3 hours each month to focus on creating your content. Since you’ve already developed a list and an abstract or outline, the time you set aside will be productive. I recommend creating content first thing in the morning, when you are sharpest.
Content batching sources of inspiration for health and wellness experts
Need help on your brainstorming session? Try some of the following sources of inspiration:
The calendar, including holidays and healthcare hashtag days.
Seasonal themes: Depending on your business, focus on the seasons that affect your audience and create content themes, where you can go in depth over a few weeks or a month at a time. I’ve even done this with a B2B insurance broker, so you can for sure think of ones that will work for your industry (30 days to protect your business during cyber awareness month, anyone?).
Check out what’s working for your competitors. Of course, you never want to copy your competition, but you should check out what’s working for them (and what’s not) to glean inspiration. Key to not replicating what they’re doing is to take a peek and then walk away before you dive into your own content.
Like any new habit in life or in your health or wellness business, creating content takes time to get used to, but once you get going and see the chatter increase about your business because of it, you’ll never look back.
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