"Cheats" way to create 18 incredible social media posts in less time

When I'm designing websites, I start from a blank screen, after all that is what I'm being paid for and there is nothing more satisfying than starting the day with a totally blank screen and having a full website by the end of the day.

However, when it comes to my own social media I'm a massive fan of batching content and have spoken on this before - batching means spending a period of time just concentrating on one thing. I always batch my social media posts, I will spend a few hours designing them using some of my favourite tools, and then I spend a little bit more time writing the blurb to go with the posts and scheduling them so rather than having to find something new to write every day I can get it done all in one fell swoop. Because I'm creating them all together it means I'm in a creative zone and it's easier to just design, write and schedule.

Here's one mahooosive tip to cheat your way to great looking content!!

I use something called an “Instagram Puzzle” as a template to create 18 posts all at once.

Firstly I “cheat” rather than spend time recreating the wheel I purchase for usually between $7-20 a template off a site like Etsy, Creative Fabrica, Creative Market etc (search for Instagram Puzzle but make sure you buy one that can be edited in Canva which is a free tool). I find different templates I like and then I change the colours and fonts to match my brand. I then swap out all the photos and often the quotes so I end up with something that is very original and very much on brand for me.

The following is the original template that I downloaded from Creative Fabrica (I have an account with them and get unlimited downloads) and then “my version” (can you tell I had a branded photoshoot done recently!!), the editing was done in Canva.

The template may have completely changed but it is now specific to my brand and my message but I've not had to spend time placing things in the right space and faffing around to get it to look good!

I use PineTools to split this single image into 18 separate images - 6 high x 3 wide.

I then use Tailwind to create my posts and schedule them to IG (and then in turn to Facebook). I write all the copy to go with each image, use some hashtags (I use no more than 7 which is the current recommended amount), some of the hashtags are recommended by Tailwind and others are my own hashtags. There are plenty of schedulers out there, but I use Tailwind as it is brilliant for creating Pinterest pins.

To create the 18 posts probably takes about 3 hours or so. If I spread the posts out every other day then that can give me about a month or six weeks worth of posts.

If you're not already following me on Instagram … why not? Follow me to see how the image above is turned into 18 daily posts. In turn some of those posts will become longer versions and reposted as blog posts which in turn will be Pinned on Pinterest giving me 8-10 pins per blog post to be Pinned once a week but that is a whole different post!

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