The Socialize Strategy - Batch Creating

Episode Title: Batch Creating Content: What Works (and What Doesn’t)

🗓️ Episode Summary

Helen is back from her travels and diving right into one of the most talked-about topics inside The Muthership Studio this month — batch creating content. In this episode, she shares her honest experience of batch creating tutorials before her trip, what she learned about the process, and why it’s both a powerful tool and a mental shift for creators.

She also kicks things off with a hilarious “Unsponsored By” segment featuring her travel deodorant saga — proving that even something as simple as deodorant can teach us about consistency, flexibility, and having a good backup plan.

💡 Key Takeaways
1. Why Batch Creating Matters
Batch creating can save your sanity during busy periods or travel.
It’s especially helpful for creators with a consistent niche or tutorial-based content.
Think of it as “content insurance” — your rhythm stays intact even when life gets hectic.

2. The Emotional Disconnect
Helen admits that batch creating made her feel a bit disconnected from her content — it didn’t feel fresh when posting later.
The lesson: it’s okay if batch-created content feels less spontaneous; the audience doesn’t notice — but you might.
Her sweet spot? About a week’s worth of content at a time, not two.

3. How to Do It Efficiently
Plan 4–5 videos in one shoot, especially if they follow a theme or tutorial style.
Don’t overcomplicate wardrobe changes — no one’s tracking your shirt!
Caption and save your videos to drafts so all you have to do later is hit “Post.”

4. Customize for Your Niche
Creators with structured content (like tutorials or coaching) benefit most from batching.
“In-between” content — trends, behind-the-scenes, spontaneous posts — can stay flexible.
Example: If you’re a relationship coach, plan a mix of speaking videos, trends, and voiceovers on your main topics.
5. Scheduling vs. Drafts
Helen prefers drafts for TikTok and Instagram, since she’s active daily.
For YouTube, she uses the scheduler — perfect for longer-form uploads that aren’t part of her daily rhythm.

🗂️ Muthership Studio Strategy Spotlight
Inside the Socialize Studio, Juli shares a practical batch creation planning method:
Make a list of your upcoming posts by day of the week.
Decide what type of video fits each slot (tutorial, trend, voiceover, etc.).
Keep your strategy visible — it keeps you accountable and creative.

🎬 What’s Coming Up
Helen teases next month’s Studio theme: Transitions!
It’s a topic she didn’t want to miss during her trip, so it’s rolling into November — expect tutorials, examples, and creative challenges designed to level up your editing skills.

JOIN HERE: https://socialize-studio.mn.co

What is The Socialize Podcast?

Twice weekly show providing social media updates, trend alerts, original content ideas, strategy session, industry guests, tutorials and more!

Helen: 00:00

Hello. Hello. I'm back. Welcome to the Social Media Strategy. Happy Friday.

Helen: 00:04

Did you miss me? Well, I have to say that today's topic for the newsletter is directly related to what I had to do before I left for this trip. And we talked about it briefly in well, we talked about it in-depth in the studio this month. But briefly, I mentioned last week and the week before that I was batch creating my content before I left so that I wouldn't have to be beholden to make tutorials specifically while I was gone. I didn't batch create other content before I left.

Helen: 00:33

I knew that I would make trends or just irreverent little videos of travel while I was traveling. So I didn't batch create every single video. I wanna be clear about that. I batch created my tutorials so that my in between content could be just whatever I felt like doing. And then every three or four videos, I could just send out a tutorial to keep my rhythm of my content.

Helen: 00:58

And I think we have talked about this in-depth this month in the studio about content and planning and strategy and why why I do that, which is keeping that rotation going. So if you're interested in that, you can, join us over there. But what I found interesting about doing it, I have never done it for a two week period ever. I never. I can honestly say that I have I always every week, I go, oh, what tutorials do I wanna shoot?

Helen: 01:25

And then I kind of do them one at a time when I feel like doing them. I I don't usually do a bunch in a row. I I wanna be honest about that. And what I found about batch creating for me was that I was a little disconnected because I would just search for the video and post it, but it was not fresh to me. So I was like, oh, I felt like I was posting an old video.

Helen: 01:46

So my feeling about it didn't change the outcome necessarily of how they performed at all because I my tutorials did well, as I always do. But it changed the mindset for me because I was like, oh, I'm posting this old video. And it wasn't an old video. It was a video I had just shot. But it was a weird it was a weird mindset.

Helen: 02:06

So I think I'm gonna try and do it more, but I wouldn't recommend doing it for, like, more than a week's worth worth of content. I it doesn't I don't like it, and that's part of one of the things that I mentioned today in the newsletter. Alright. So before I get started and go into the things, let me just do my unsponsored bisection. And I have to do this one because it relates to what happened when I was traveling and I left without my deodorant.

Helen: 02:30

And I use a specific deodorant. So this is not like I'm gonna run to any pharmacy in Greece and pick up Secret or oh, I shouldn't even say that. But I don't but I don't use that deodorant. I use Kiehl's. But I I really didn't want to have to go and buy a a traditional roll on or ban or stick type thing because I don't like the way that feels.

Helen: 02:51

It feels sticky, and I'm not used to it. I'm into my lotion deodorant, and I love my Kiehl's brand. So I'm bringing back to tell you that it's one of those things that takes some getting used to, but it works so well. I never have to worry. And I thought that hormonally, I'm like, I don't even smell that much anymore.

Helen: 03:08

No. It's actually this. Because when I didn't have it, I said, well, I can't find it here because I looked and it was not available. I'm like, I'll just go without deodorant for the week because honestly, don't even think I smell that much anymore. So I did.

Helen: 03:22

For like six days, I was doing pretty good. And then on the, like, the seventh or eighth day, was like, oh god, what's that smell? And it was me. And I was like, crap. I guess my deodorant wasn't working.

Helen: 03:35

So I had to go and find a deodorant. And I did buy one spray one in a pharmacy, and it didn't work at all. I was like, Why am I I tossed it. I was like, Well, it doesn't work, so why bother? And it was I won't even say the brand on that one.

Helen: 03:50

But I finally, after day, like, seven or eight or something, I went into another pharmacy, which was more of a specialized pharmacy, and they had, lots of more beauty brands. So I picked up this, VISHI. I don't know how you say it. V I s h I. Is it in the camera?

Helen: 04:07

Let's see. Go like that so you could see it. And it was between this and one other one that was an more of an all natural brand, and this one is is good ingredients, but I wouldn't classify it as all natural. Okay? Just in the same way that Lumi is a great brand, but they can't call themselves all natural, I guess, because of some of the ingredients that are in it.

Helen: 04:29

Anyway, point being, when I had to choose, I decided for not the all natural one, but this one. And it works. So now I have this little backup deodorant. Yay. That doesn't feel sticky.

Helen: 04:43

It it has a roll on, but it's and it's not a lotion. It's more of a liquid, I guess. But it doesn't feel like those sticky ones that you put on. So yay to finding a backup brand to my Keels. But guess what?

Helen: 04:56

It's only a backup because I am going straight for this first. So I don't know when I'm gonna use that one again, but it's here. It's cute packaging too. I like how it's small. I like the size of it.

Helen: 05:07

And I like the branding, the color. It works. So I'm happy that I found it as a backup just in case, like, Let's say one day Kiehl's stops making the deodorant just like my Oribe stopped making my hair refresher spray randomly. So now at least I have a backup if Kiehl's decides to bail in the antiperspirant world. Alright.

Helen: 05:29

So now let's get to batch creating and how to do it effectively. Okay. So it is, like I said, a good tool if you have a stretch of work coming up where you think you're gonna too busy be too busy. And one of my studio members mentioned this, that she's going back to work after having been out of work for a while or off work for a while for medical reasons, I believe. And she's like, I'm nervous, and I'm not gonna be able to keep up and blah blah blah.

Helen: 05:52

So this is a really good one good plan for somebody who knows they're gonna be a little bit busy but could potentially carve out time to do content a week at a time. And it's usually better if you have a specific niche that you're focused on because if you're just doing the like, what I call my in between content, an occasional trend or funny thing that I see in the street or a tour when I'm on and I wanna show behind the scenes or I'm working and I show what I'm doing behind the scenes. That's harder to batch create, obviously. Like, although I will say I have one behind the scenes for the secret deodorant commercials that I was shooting content for for social media, and I wasn't allowed to post it back then. So that's for an example of, well, I wasn't allowed to share it then, but I'm allowed to share it now.

Helen: 06:39

So I could have gone into my archives and put that video together to share. So that would be a nontutorial, but could accommodate could could factor into batch creating. Okay? But batch creating is really for people who are on a specific mission on social media, they wanna make sure that they're putting out a certain amount of content on that topic. And that's really good for that's what it is.

Helen: 07:06

And so it's again, it means you're planning your content. You're doing a few videos at a time. You're filming them at the same time potentially, you're editing them at the same time, and you're getting them ready to go. Whether you use a planner to post on schedule or you just put them into your drafts and you let them release and you remember to do it, which is what I did. I didn't put them in a schedule.

Helen: 07:25

I just put them into my drafts so that when they were ready, they had already been captioned and everything, and all I had to do was hit post. Okay. So now I find that a mix of both works, and so that's why I do batch create occasionally on the tutorials, not often. And then I let the other stuff fly in between. Okay.

Helen: 07:47

So now Julie has shared here in the newsletter a strategy for, I guess, a planning idea for how you might wanna do a batch creation, which is listing exactly what you wanna post and saying Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, what are your videos gonna be if you post four times a week? If you post every day, you're gonna have to do a list that's an everyday thing. I post every day, but I don't post tutorials every day. So my thing was to batch create. I think I planned five tutorials while I was away so that every three days, I would have a tutorial to post.

Helen: 08:19

Get it? So think about what you want to batch create, what the organization of that looks like, and then what you want to do when you shoot and accomplish. So I want to talk a little bit about when I shot the tutorials because I think this is helpful. Some people think you have to change your outfit because you have to make it look like it's a different day. And I agree that I used to do it that way when I did a couple in a row in the beginning when I was first on social media, but now I don't get concerned about that too much.

Helen: 08:46

First of all, I don't get I wear the same styles of shirts a lot, so to me, whatever. So if you see the same shirt three videos in a row, oh, well. I'm okay with it. But some people might want to change. So you have to factor that in.

Helen: 09:00

You have to have your wardrobe standing by. You have to be ready. There was a time where I changed my shirts, and then as soon as I put on the second shirt, go, ugh, I don't like that as much as the other shirt. So then I'd be, like, rifling through my wardrobe to find yet another top. And it was just like taking too much time out of the process, and I was getting hung up on that.

Helen: 09:16

So I stopped doing that. And now when I batch create, unless I'm changing the outfit for the tutorial, like I had one where I was doing a multi character thing, so I had a second outfit. So then I had the second outfit on, so I just used that for the other tutorials. So I would mix it up if it made sense, but otherwise, listen, honey, I'm just putting a shirt on and I'm shooting four tutorials. And if someone's looking at my shirt, they're not paying attention to the lesson.

Helen: 09:39

So that is specific to my content. This is not to say that you might wanna change your outfit if that's more logical to you, if you're trying to make it look like they were shot on different days. I don't think anybody's seeing these videos back to back, especially because I'm not posting them back to back. I'm posting them every four three or four videos. So you're seeing other things, my other stuff.

Helen: 10:03

Okay? So that's so that's a thing. And the other thing that you can do with batch creating is think about the topic that you're on. And this is different than what I do, because for me it's like tutorial, tutorial, tutorial. But let's say your, your topic is menopause.

Helen: 10:18

I'm make it up just because I was talking about my smelly pits. If your topic is menopause, you might say, one, you're gonna do a speaking video about menopause. One, you're gonna do a trend where you pull a trend out that's, you know, that just started so that if you're gonna post it in a week, it's still relevant. And then one, you're gonna do, like, a photo dump or a voice over or something different. So that's a different way of batch creating where it's making three videos about the same topic.

Helen: 10:43

Okay? So that is, depending on your niche, could make sense. For me, I don't operate that way. I have like I'm teaching this, this, this, and that. Like, I pick four topics I'm gonna teach, and then I just do the tutorials.

Helen: 11:00

I don't say, oh, now I'm gonna, first I'm gonna teach lip sync, and then I'm gonna do a lip sync. And, you know, I could do that. And then I'm gonna do a voice over about how to make a better lip sync or something like that. I could do that. But to me, my in between content is a lot easier for me to just do willy nilly and doesn't have to relate to the topic necessarily.

Helen: 11:22

Okay? Does that make sense? I think I'm rambling. In any case, I think you get what I'm saying. So you have to think about how batch creating works best for you, what kinds what types of content do you feel comfortable batch creating, and what things do you think you can fill in on the fly.

Helen: 11:40

And now I'm gonna digress totally and say, if let's say you are okay. Let's pick another topic. Relationship coach, and your all of your videos are about relationship content, And you don't necessarily do that many trends. You might wanna do a lip sync here and there and put something about being a relate relationship coach. Either way, let's say every day you wanna post something about relationship coaching.

Helen: 12:04

I would then say, okay. I'm gonna post one where I'm talking about this topic, one where I do a trend about this topic, one where I'm talking about another topic, and and decide how many times you wanna insert trends. You don't have to do it between every video. So in that case, you might really wanna power out seven videos to get them ready to go so that you can do your your back to back speaking content. So this type of way of working works differently for different types of creators.

Helen: 12:39

That's why I'm trying to explain, you know, don't get hung don't think you have to post in between content if that's not what your page is. So let me talk to, tips from dead people. Hi, Mary, if you're listening. So she posts she reads obituaries and tells little anecdotes about her point of of what she thought of the obituary. She has different hooks in the beginning.

Helen: 13:00

So for her, she's not necessarily doing trends. So her whole page is really about sharing, you know, quirky obituaries, interesting obituaries, funny ones, sad ones, or whatever. So she would really then batch create all of those videos, and she doesn't necessarily want to put trends in between them. And so if that's the case, you eliminate that. That's not gonna work for her.

Helen: 13:24

You get it? So it's what works for how you're posting now and decide, can they batch all batch be batch created, or do I pick the one style where I'm doing the speaking videos and I batch create those and then the other ones I create on the fly. Alright? That's what it is. Okay.

Helen: 13:41

And lastly, my tip, which I don't take my own advice on, is to maybe think about using a scheduler so that you don't if you are really crazy busy, the days go by and you're like, crap. I didn't hit post on that video. You know, that has happened to me. But typically, because I'm in tune with my social media enough, I don't get so consumed that I forget about it. But if you do, you have to use a scheduler so that you're not letting the days slip, and then all of a sudden you never posted anything.

Helen: 14:10

Alright. This the tip I have for you too is, for YouTube, because I don't I'm not on YouTube daily, I schedule all my YouTube videos. So when I make a batch of tutorials, I immediately go into YouTube and I schedule them on YouTube. I don't schedule them in TikTok or Instagram. I do them in the drafts and I release them because I'm on TikTok and Instagram daily.

Helen: 14:31

But I'm not watching YouTube daily in that way, so that's where I use the scheduler. Okay? I hope that's clear. I hope you learned something, and I am so excited for this afternoon because I have not seen my studio peeps in, like, two weeks. Ah, Julie did the the live last week with everybody.

Helen: 14:52

I'm sure they had fun without me, but I'm really excited to see everyone this afternoon. So if you're listening and you're gonna be there later, I'll see you later. I'm looking forward to sharing some details about my travels. And if you are interested in joining the club, getting in the club and joining us, it's just, a learning extravaganza. We are going to tackle transitions next month.

Helen: 15:14

I saved it. I was gonna do it in October, but I knew I was gonna be away. And I really like that topic, so I didn't wanna miss out in the middle of the month on being able to have live meetings about it. So we saved it for November. Yippee dee doo.

Helen: 15:26

And we're gonna tackle some fun transitions. Okay? See you soon. Thanks for listening as always. I think it's funny that I don't have an intro or an outro on my podcast, and I'd love to know if you like that, that I just dive in.

Helen: 15:40

And I don't have, like, music and a little, like, canned blurb that comes out every time. Because when I listen to podcasts, I skip right through that anyway. So why do I need to do that? I don't need to torture you. That's my plan.

Helen: 15:54

Okay. I'm losing my voice. I'll see you I'll see you later today. Have a good one. And if you're not in the studio, I'll see you next week.