You need a content creation SYSTEM - here’s how to build one.

You can have the best ideas in the world, but if you don’t have a proper system in place, those ideas might never come to fruition. When it comes to content, having a content creation system will allow you to stay consistent in your content creation journey. But don’t fear, today - I am going to walk you through how to build one that is customized to YOU.

What is a content creation system?

First, let’s define a content creation system, it is a habit or a routine that you can return to in order to stay consistent with your content creation.

It’s all about finding a routine that works for your lifestyle and finding a system that works for you and leaning into that.

So, that might look like batching content a month in advance. It might look like planning your concepts a week in advance, and creating your content the day of. No one approach is better than the other, it’s all about what works for you and your schedule.

Monthly Batching:

Let’s first talk about batching a month in advance. This is actually something I did in the past when I had a bit more free time to dedicate a lot of time all at once to create an entire month's worth of content. Now, I do things a bit differently, which we will talk about in a bit - but this monthly batching routine is how we currently create high volumes of content for our clients each month. I want to break this down week by week for you, so you can decide if this routine would work for you.

Week 1: Plan & research content concepts

The first week of the month will be the time you plan and research all of your content. for clients, we meet with them and create a strategy/content calendar for their review. Of course, as a solo-content creator - this will be the time you do some digging into your comments, DMs, news, and updates in your niche, or even pull from some of your evergreen content - like YouTube, Podcasts, or blogs. If you haven’t already, you can grab my Notion Content Calendar template, which can be found on my website www.katiesteckly.com/shop - included in the calendar is a tutorial video on how to use this content calendar to schedule all of this using Notion.

Week 2: Gather media for content

Now that you have your game plan, it’s time to gather the assets needed to create the content. When it comes to working with clients, this is when we ask them to submit their contributions - which commonly includes Reel footage and written contributions to make sure the content is authentic to them and their brand - but for you - it’s time to film all of your Reels (and a little pro tip, you should film a few Reels each day of this week to make outfit changes a breeze) - you will also collect any photos and design all of your graphics.

Week 3: Edit content

You have gathered your media and now it’s time to get them ready for scheduling. For clients, this is when we will edit all of their contributions, but for you - it’s finally time to edit all of your Reels and photos. Another tip - when you are gathering all of this raw content in Week 2, make sure to label the folders you saved them in or drop the files directly into the post concept in Notion - that way it’s easier to stay organized when it’s time to edit.

Week 4: Schedule media and write captions

The final phase of this batching routine is to schedule all of your media and write the captions. Normally for clients, we write the captions during the editing phase, so they have plenty of time to review the content, but for you - it’s almost easier to do this while you’re scheduling the content since you can do all of these steps in one place - Later. We solely use Later for all of our Instagram scheduling - we use it for clients and I also use it for my personal and business accounts. The greatest thing about Later is now ALL POST TYPES can be auto-published. So once you take the time to schedule each piece of content and write your captions, you don’t have to look at it again.

Now, this might not be for you - it might be too much all at once and you might prefer to work in small chunks at a time, which is when you can try a weekly approach.

Weekly Batching:

With weekly batching, this can truly be customizable to your schedule, but let me give you some inspiration by sharing how I make this work.

My weeks vary a lot, so instead of having a specific time block (for example, Mondays at 3pm), I will set two reminders in my weekly to-do list I have created in Notion, so that I will have a trigger to plan my content, and create my content.

With this system, I can quickly drag and drop each of these tasks on the day that makes the most sense for me that specific week. And I know that every week, I’m going to have that reminder to spend a few hours planning and creating my content for the following week.

Sunday Night or Monday Morning:

So for example, say on Sunday night or Monday morning, I am ready to plan my week. I will look at my Google Calendar to see what meetings I have coming up that week, I will glance at some of the overflow tasks I didn’t accomplish the week before, and add any fresh or reoccurring tasks that need to be completed that week. Once I have done that, I know what days I will have the time needed to plan my content and create it - so I will drop in those two tasks where they fit the best.

Plan my Content:

On the day I scheduled to plan my content, this will look just like week one of the monthly batching routine. I will still do the same research and planning, but on a smaller scale. Instead of a month of content, I will plan the posts needed for the next week. Lately, I have been focused more on quality over quantity, my goal is 3 posts per week. So in this case, I will plan and research my 3 posts.

Create my Content:

Now, on the day it’s time to create content - you will pretty much do weeks 2-4 all at once. You can film your Reels, take any photos (or maybe pull from a stash), and create your necessary graphics. You can then immediately drop them into Later to schedule and write captions. It sounds intimidating, but you have to remember, this is just for one week, in my case - it’s only 3 posts, so it won’t take nearly as long as you think.

Now, if you have a more structured schedule, you could plan these for specific days, so for example Tuesday is the day you plan content and Thursday is the day you create it. But if you are like me and work on a more ever-changing schedule, planning this week by week is easier for me. You can also spread this out even more, and have a day for planning, a day for gathering media, and a day for editing content.

There are really unlimited variations on what your content creation system can look like - but the point is that it’s personalized, it fits within your existing schedule, and you’re realistic about it. Because the easiest way to fail is to set yourself unrealistic expectations - so really think about your average week or month, and decide how much time you can allot to content creation, and when it makes the most sense to schedule that time in.