Batching Instagram Content — Step-by-Step Guide & Transcript

[00:00] Today, I am going to attempt to batch a week's worth of Instagram content in just a few hours, including filming, editing, and scheduling the content. In the past, I have attempted to batch an entire month's worth of Instagram content in one day,

[00:13] which technically is possible. I have done it. However, recently I've been in the routine of making my Instagram content one week at a time. I feel like this allows me to stay more current with, like, trends and trending audios,

[00:25] but even beyond that, just for the content to feel more fresh. It also means that if I notice a piece of content performing particularly well, I can more quickly react to that by making more content similar to it.

[00:37] I think the last thing you want is for a piece of content to finally go viral, but then by the time you make, like, the part two in the series or the follow-up, it's, like, a month later and, like, there's just no momentum anymore. Obviously, the extreme end of that logic is just to be making fresh content on the fly every single day,

[00:53] but I think when it comes to strategic content creation, And there's always going to be a balance between being reactive, being in the moment, and also being able to, like, have a life and not be constantly online. So I try to strike that balance with this routine.

[01:06] So you can consider today's video the behind the scenes on my current Instagram content creation workflow as of October of 2025. My creative processes are always changing and evolving, but I'm hoping that this snapshot of my current workflow can maybe give you an idea of how you want to create content for yourself.

[01:23] Oh, and thanks to 12th Doves for sponsoring today's video. More on them in just a minute. So first things first, we got a film. In case you missed it, in the first half of this mini Create With Me series, I walked you through my entire workflow for coming up with the content ideas

[01:36] and showing you how I plan them in a strategic way for growth. And in this video, I'm showing you how I actually bring them to reality. So I've already got my shot list here for me to work from. And for this week, I actually have just one reel that I need to shoot fresh clips for.

[01:49] The other ones I'm going to use my D-Roll library for, which I'll show you more about in just a minute. So the video that I'm actually shooting clips for this week is just a little highlight of my favorite new tripod mount, which is this little MagSafe adapter.

[02:01] I'm basically going to do the most meta thing ever and set up a tripod to film myself setting up a tripod. And yes, it goes even a layer deeper because I have set up another tripod to show you the whole process.

[02:13] This is the extent that I go to for you guys, okay? I'm going to want to get some good coverage of each step of the process, so then I can like edit it together with some quick cuts later. By the way, I'm filming all of these clips today on my Sony ZD-E10 Mark II,

[02:27] and I've got the Sony 11mm lens on it as well. Now, there is absolutely nothing wrong with just filming on your phone. In this very particular case, I needed my phone to be in the shot so I could demonstrate this tripod.

[02:39] But yeah, otherwise you could totally be filming with this. Another thing that I just find makes it so much easier is having a flip around screen so I can see what I'm doing while I'm filming myself, which is a little bit harder if you're going to be shooting with the back cameras, obviously. But there are ways.

[02:52] So, yeah, that's just how I'm doing it right now. And as we wrap up these last few clips, that's all the filming that I'm going to do for this week. This is definitely a lighter filming week, but I think that's really the power of having your B-roll library

[03:04] because you can give yourself that grace when you need it to just, like, film a little something and then otherwise rely on the work that your top self did. Alrighty, next up on the list is to record the voiceover for the voiceover vlog that I have on my content calendar.

[03:17] This one is about whether or not damn right it's worth it. The script is already written. I showed you that stage of the process in my last video, so all we need to do is record it. So the way that I usually like to record voiceovers is I just use my DJI Mini Mic.

[03:30] All I gotta do is plug the receiver into my phone, and then I'm gonna open up the Voice Notes app. That's where I'm gonna record it. And I can just read the script off of my iPad here because I've already got my content notes pulled up. when I was filming. Quick beginner voiceover tip for you. If you make a mistake while recording

[03:46] your voiceover, simply start over from the beginning of the sentence. From my time working with different clients over the years, I've noticed that a lot of beginners tend to feel like if they stumble over a word, they need to start from the very beginning of their script, which

[03:59] can be so frustrating because if you get to the very end and then you mess up like the second last word, it would really suck to have to start over from scratch. But my friends, this is why and it didn't exist. You don't have to do that to yourself.

[04:11] We can just cut out the mistake and it will flow more smoothly if you just start over from the beginning of the sentence. Technically, if you stumble over one word, you could just start over with that word and keep going, but it'll sound more natural if you restart the sentence.

[04:24] Okay, so we've got our clips filmed that we need to film. The voiceover is recorded. It's time to sit down and edit. You know me. We need a coffee.

[04:38] It feels so good to be doing this right now. You know, I love traveling. I love being in my van, but it feels so good to be back home and filming videos back home again.

[04:50] So you may have noticed that while I'm filming, I like to keep my iPad handy so that I can reference my content calendar and my notes while I'm filming. And I have been loving keeping it on the Curve mini stand from 12SUS. 12SUS is a brand that focuses on crafting high-quality and beautifully designed accessories for your Apple products.

[05:05] Not only are they functional, but they look very aesthetic on your desk as well. I also love their curved nano stand for my phone. Not only is it a great phone stand but it also functions as the perfect sleep mini tripod especially for quickly capturing vertical content while you on the go It just so low profile and easy to take with you Now when I batching content and I don want to have to carry my laptop around the house for all the different shots that I need to get

[05:29] I find that keeping my notes on my iPad set up on the Curve Mini is the perfect solution. I can adjust its height, the tilt of the screen, it really makes checking my content notes the seamless and distraction-free part of the workflow.

[05:41] Honestly, I've just always been impressed with the build quality of 12Circ's products. product. I just feel like they've matched the quality and aesthetic of Apple products so well. So if you want to check out 12 Steps for Yourself, you can do that at the link in the description.

[05:53] And thanks again to 12 Steps for making today's video possible. This has all been moving along very well so far, and a lot of that is because we're going to be pulling from my B-roll library for some of this content. So before I show you that, we need to import the footage. All right,

[06:06] first things first, let's grab the SD card of this camera. I've already got my screen hard drive plugged into my laptop here, which is just connected to this monitor, and we're going to transfer those clips that I shot of the tripod over. Okay, before we transfer these files over,

[06:19] why don't I give you a look at my file organization system for my short form content. So on my hard drive here, I've got a folder for short form, and you can see in here I've got folders that are numbered and titled for the month of the year. So let's look inside October.

[06:35] Here you can see the way that I've done it is each piece of content, the folder, is titled by the date that I plan to post it on. So obviously this video was posted on October 1st,

[06:47] this one on October 3rd, October 7th, October 8th, and so on. I find this is the most helpful way for me if I need to go back and reference something because on Instagram, I can usually see what day I posted something.

[06:59] So if I'm like, oh, I want a clip from that video, I know what month to go back to and then what date. And then the title is just a helpful reference too that can be like quicker to find than the date. I remember what I called it. So, for example, this tripod little video that I just filmed, I'm going to post that on October 30th.

[07:17] So I'm going to label this 30-10-2035, and then I'm just going to title it, like, Best Tripod. Then I've got my SD card open in this other window, and I'm just going to select these clips and drag them over into this folder.

[07:33] So these folders contain only the clips that I shot specifically for that piece of content. If we go back over into my main short form folder, you see that I have the subfolders for van life b-roll and general vertical b-roll.

[07:47] These are clips that I can reuse for different purposes, obviously depending on the theme of the video, and I've tried to title them based on what they are so I can search for them in Divinity Resolve and, like, find, you know, the relevant clips for the theme of the video.

[08:01] I've been lazy with the van life clips and I haven't actually labeled them, but, you know, I can look through them visually and decide what I need. So, along those lines, for the Is Van Life Worth It voiceover vlog, all of the clips that I'm going to use for that are going to come from those URL folders.

[08:19] But I did specifically record that voiceover for it, of course. So, I'm going to make a folder for it and title it Is Van Life Worth It. and all I have to do is airdrop that clip from my phone to my laptop and then I'm just going to

[08:33] drag that from downloads over into this folder. So that voiceover clip will always live in this folder that's specifically for this piece of content and the other clips that I'm going to get for it are going to come from this van life folder over here. I know I've been talking a lot

[08:47] about the value of having a b-roll library and if you haven't started one for yourself yet don't worry, I do have a resource for you. I have a free B-roll checklist that has tons of ideas of potential B-roll clips that you might want to shoot that you can use again and again in your

[09:01] content. So yeah, I'll have that linked below. Like I said, totally free, just a list of clip ideas that I recommend you film so you can have a B-roll library like this. And of course, another piece of the puzzle is just to be continuously shooting content throughout your life and keeping

[09:14] it organized. Like it's easy to film all the time. What's harder is putting it somewhere where you can actually find it later. So that's an essential step. All right, well, let's open up to this and I'll show you how I approach editing. Again, organization is my top priority here. You'll

[09:28] notice on the left-hand side in my media pool, I have a similar organizational strategy as I do in my folders, like on my hard drive. So basically over here, I've got B-roll that, again, this is

[09:40] my B-roll library. I can use this over and over again. I've got a collection of music that I like. Sometimes I use trending audios, sometimes I just use music from Epidemic Sound, depends on the type of video. I also have some sound effects.

[09:52] And then you'll see that I have folders for the different months that, again, have subfolders that, you know, have the date and then the title of the video. And then each of them, of course, have their own timelines. You can see along the bottom here that I have various timelines.

[10:06] The reason why I like to do it like this is you could start a new project for each individual video. Because these are short videos, like, you know, maybe 12 or 15 seconds long, having them all in the same project doesn't, like, generate this massive project that slows down my computer or anything, like, it's still reasonable.

[10:22] And it allows me to bop back to, like, say, August and, like, go into this video and find the clips that I shot for and then easily reuse those as B-roll later, too. This is my system.

[10:34] I've spent years crafting this, and I love it. I way prefer editing my courtroom video like this than doing it on my phone I swear I can feel my eyesight getting worse when I try to edit on my phone So okay so I going to start by dragging these two folders

[10:51] that I created over into my media pool into my October folder. Now I'm also going to just create a new bin in here for my one video that is only going to use B-roll. I didn't have to create any

[11:04] new assets for it. So it's empty right now, but that is where the timeline is going to go. That how's this wheel? I think we'll put this off with me showing you how I edit a voiceover vlog. So all we have right now in this folder is this humble little

[11:19] voiceover but I'm going to go ahead and right click and create a new timeline and I'm going to name this the same thing that I named the folder and I'm going to make sure that we've got vertical resolution selected, 30 frames

[11:34] per second, that's how I film all of my vertical content and then we've got this in 4k. So that's looking good. I'm going to create it. Now I can drag my voiceover clip into the timeline. I'm going to drag this down so I can see the waveform. And I'm actually going to start by

[11:50] cutting the voiceover and getting it to the point where I think it sounds like the final version, which mostly is just going to include cutting out these pauses. So you can see any time that the waveform is just blank, that means that I was stopping to take a breath or to check my script.

[12:04] So we're going to get rid of those pauses. And then something that I like to do sometimes to make the edit really pacey and, you know, not drag on at all, is I will overlap a little bit of the end of one sentence with the start of the next. I just find that helps it to flow really nicely,

[12:20] and you know, especially with short-form content, it's about keeping people engaged, so we don't want to be boring, do we? So someone who's always scared of being boring. So we'll take a listen, and you'll see what I mean here. Would you put up with living in a metal box,

[12:33] using a composting toilet and sometimes go day to day showering. So I don't want to like be talking over myself too much, but I am able to like make it blend way faster than I could actually like speak like that in person.

[12:45] So I just find it satisfying. I like how it sounds. So this is what our timeline looks like now. I've got the finalized version of the voiceover all ready to go, including the blending between sentences that I was talking about. So now what we're going to do is go back up into the media pool and go to my B-roll folder.

[13:01] I've got a sub-folder for Van Life People in particular. Now I'm basically going to go through and kind of listen to the different parts of my voiceover and find clips that I think are relevant.

[13:13] As I'm looking through my B-roll library, I'm going to just start grabbing stuff and throwing it in the timeline, even if I'm not sure exactly where it's going to go yet. Okay, so I've got a good collection of clips going on here that I'm going to, like, properly organize.

[13:25] But I just came to an example that I wanted to highlight of why it's helpful to have all of my past videos in the same project. So I got to this section where I talk about going days without showering, and I was like, oh, I don't have any shower-related clips in my general B-roll folder, but I remembered that back in August, I made a video about how I get showers while I'm living in the van.

[13:49] I'm like, that's perfect. I can use this as B-roll for this section of the video. So I'm going to go and find what clips work the best. if there's one lesson you take away from this I hope it's the value of like organizing and storing

[14:03] your past clips because it can truly pay dividends for you when you can make content like this and all you had to do was record a voiceover you didn't have to go and film a million good things like that's the power of file organization my friends and I will never stop talking about it

[14:18] basically all that's left to do is I'm going to create a subtitle so the way that I do that in Resolve and story is a page feature but like I think this is very worth it. So go into timeline, AI tools, create subtitles from audio. I just leave the default as they are and click create and it will just take a minute or two here. I find that Resolve is really quite accurate with the automatic captions which is awesome. So you can see it's just using the subtitle track defaults here but if we go up to our inspector panel and click on these three dots we can go ahead and load my

[14:53] Reel Caption preset. And now we've got the style links that I like to use in all of my videos. And then finally I'll add in my background music which I am just going to use music from Epidemic

[15:05] Sound for this. All right this reel is pretty much ready to export so before I do that what I like to do is just quickly disable these text tracks here so I just have a clean screenshot and then I'm

[15:21] I'm going to hit shift E on my keyboard, which allows me to export this as a still. And then I'm just going to navigate to my October folder and choose October covers.

[15:33] And then I just leave the title as this and export it. And now I have my image that I will later on edit into a cover. We'll get to that step in a bit. So I'll enable these once again and go over to my export tab here.

[15:49] And I'm going to go down to subtitle settings here and have export subtitles clicked. But I don't want it as a separate file. I want to burn it into the video. That means that you will see the text on the screen when I have the final export here Okay so the next reel that we need to edit is that tripod one Now for this one I do want to use trending audio

[16:12] because I just think that would make sense. So now we have to do my literal least favorite part of this process, which is still hunting for a good audio to use. So I'm going to have to go scroll for a couple of minutes.

[16:24] I think that scrolling is kind of the most authentic and organic way to find trending audios, because then you can see them in context. However, there is another faster way. From your profile, if you go to Professional Dashboard, and then you go under Your Tools, tap on Inspiration.

[16:40] And if you go over to the Audio tab, you can see Trending Audio. So we can listen through these and potentially choose one of them. Once I've selected the audio that I want to use, I'll just do a quick screen recording of it,

[16:52] and then airdrop that screen recording over to my computer. and then, of course, put that into that same folder where I'm keeping the clips and bring it into Resolve so that I can edit to that music.

[17:04] All right, here we go. I am exporting the last reel that I used to edit. This one was the easy one. It's just a single clip with a single piece of text on the top. Like, the laziest possible reel I could make. But you know what?

[17:17] I honestly felt like a little bit insecure when I was planning to make this video because I knew that this week's content was maybe a little bit lazy. But I think it's kind of realistic to show you that, like, not every single week is going to be your, like,

[17:31] ride out of the park, best reel you've ever made. Like, sometimes we just need to, like, maintain what we're doing and stay consistent. So here's what we've got so far. We've got our three reels exported and run to go.

[17:45] And then over here, we've got our three cover images that I exported. Now, I'm still going to, like, add text and edit those cover images, but we'll do that in a bit. Moving right along, it is time to work on the carousel post.

[17:58] I thought I would come over to the post for a little change in scenery. You can see my desk is right there. It's not that big of a change, but similar to Reels, it is possible to edit your carousels in the Instagram app.

[18:13] Like, you can add the text over top of everything. But similar to Reels, I hate doing that. So I like to make mine in Canva instead. I actually have this folder of my, like, carousels here in Canva, so I've got all my past ones saved if I ever want to, like, reference that.

[18:30] If you watched my first video in the series, you'll know that I wanted to do something with, like, screenshots of, like, iMessage and notes and stuff. I said, it's very trendy right now, it's just still very, like, organic and, like, personable. So, I just, like, texted some stuff to myself and took screenshots of it.

[18:45] Okay, I think I'm satisfied with this. I hope that, like, the vibe of what I'm trying to show is coming across in this. Like, I hope the message is landing. But we're going to try it.

[18:57] You've got to experiment. We'll see how this one goes. But it's done for now. Okay, we're back at the desk to take this across the finish line, guys. There's only a few things left to do.

[19:09] I am going to write the caption. I do this in my notes and content calendar as well. I have a little field on each item for the caption. This makes it really easy. Just click this button to copy and paste it over into Instagram. I'm also going to do the cover images.

[19:24] So basically bring those screenshots I took earlier into Photoshop, add text over top, and because I'm extra, I will bring them into Lightroom as well. I have my preset too done so that they all look cohesive on my feed.

[19:36] So honestly, Instagram has been really annoying lately with Reels covers. Like, they just are, like, going away. Like, I put so much work into making these cute, and then it glitches and it just throws me an ugly, like, video still. on my feed though. Anyway, Instagram, get it together. Finally, once all of that is done,

[19:52] I airdrop the covers and the exported videos and carousel images to my camera roll on my phone. And from there, I just load them into the Instagram app as drafts. You know the drill.

[20:04] Now we've got to like put that stuff from my camera roll into Instagram. And then all I'm going to do is tap save draft. And I'm going to leave that in my draft until I'm actually ready to post it. I could definitely use Instagram's built-in scheduling feature here, but I'm a bit

[20:19] of a control freak and I prefer to like press publish myself. It also means that I'm like actually thinking about it when I post it, so I can also be online to like reply to the first few comments that I get. Because otherwise, I just know I would schedule the post, totally forget

[20:33] that it got published, and it would be like hours later and I wouldn't have even looked at the comments. So that's just how I like to do it. And of course, I'm also going to get these loaded into my drafts on TikTok and schedule them as YouTube shorts as well. All right, I feel like nothing is

[20:46] more satisfying than seeing your drafts filled with great content ready to post for the upcoming week. Well, thanks for coming along for a batching day with me. It was nice to have some company.

[20:58] Like I said before, this is just kind of a snapshot in time. This is how I'm currently creating my Instagram content, but I'm always shifting and changing my process depending on what my life looks like in that given moment.

[21:11] So figure out what works for you and what feels fun and creative for you. Because if you can make content creation fun, which is what it should be, then consistency is so much easier. Like it shouldn't have to feel like a chore. And as always, I hope that you're having adventures and following your dreams.

[21:26] And I'll catch you in the next video. Bye!