A Step-By-Step Guide to Create a Social Media Portfolio
Whether you’re creating a social media portfolio for the first time or you’re a seasoned professional, it can be a lot of work! Trust me, I get it!
Here’s the thing though, it’s a part of your business that is worth taking the time to update! One of the biggest reasons…. it can help you close new business deals even easier! Because here’s the thing, you can tell new business prospects about your background and how you can kick butt for their brands but your portfolio can help you actually show them results you’ve gotten for other clients. Sounds like a pretty good deal to me! It doesn’t have to be a complicated process either so together I’m sharing a step-by-step guide on how you can create a social media portfolio that converts and is easy to update.
Breakdown your Project into Key Sections
Let’s start with the basics. For the most part, you’re going to be showcasing your work to someone who is interested in hiring you. Whether that's a client for your business, or if you're job-hunting you may be showcasing your work to a new employer. So let’s think about what they’re going to want… short, sweet, and to the point! That way they can easily browse through multiple case studies and get right to the juicy parts right away.
In our case studies, we have 4 main sections including:
The Project: Which highlights the duration of the campaign (whether it's complete or a benchmark -- we'll talk more about that later) and the platforms we managed
Overview: In this section, we break down the key objectives of the campaign. Whether that was to increase awareness of the accounts, increase engagement rates, influencer marketing outreach, etc.
Strategy & Tactics: This is where we breakdown a few of the strategies we implemented in the campaign. Again, nothing too crazy in detail but this is where we mention if we were focused on creating a consistent content strategy, creating custom graphics or lifestyle photos, Facebook ads campaign, etc. This gives them a little more info so they understand the point of the campaign and how you approached it.
The Results: This is the most important part! Numbers talk, and we're not just talking about an increase in followers or likes. Sure, you’ll want to mention those too but this section will include anythinggg that showcases the difference the campaign you executed had on the brand. Maybe that’s how many influencers you partnered with, an increase in average weekly post engagements, an increase of web traffic, etc. You’ll also want to make sure these are simple metrics so that they are easy to understand.
Use Bullet Points to Keep Things Short and Sweet
If you haven’t noticed a trend here… keeping things short and sweet is key here! It will make your life easier when it comes to updating. Plus it will make it a lot easier for your potential client or employer to review. Oftentimes when people are looking through your portfolio they’re doing just that, so this makes skimming your work a lot easier.
Dive into the Results Section — This is What People Care About the Most
If there’s one section you spend more time on make it your results sections. THIS is where people are going to spend the most time when they’re looking at your case studies. You want to showcase that not only do you understand the industry but you can make some serious magic happen too. This is another reason why it’s so important that you are tracking analytics throughout the campaigns you manage too. You can’t get to the nitty-gritty if you don’t have starting number data!
Another tip is to showcase visuals in your results section whenever you can too. Not only will this help break up the text — we all need that when we’re reading, but it will also allow them to see your work visually. If creating a more cohesive feed was a priority then maybe show a before and after or highlight some of the styled photos or graphics you created. Was influencer marketing a component of the campaign? Instead of just saying you had 20 takeovers why don’t you have that in a bullet and then show them a few by adding in the videos. Or, why don’t you screenshot some of the top posts you created so they can see examples of that too. The options will really depend on what you did for the campaign but whenever you can show your work visually the better!
Keep Case Studies Updated Regularly (Even if you're mid-campaign)
If you want to make the most of your portfolio you need to make sure it’s updated regularly. Listen, I get it, often you're so busy doing the work that you forget to actually update your portfolio. Or, you’re still working with the client you’d like to do a case study for so how do you do one then? Something I recommend is deciding how often you are going to update your portfolio and then update all of the recently completed campaigns and then create benchmark case studies for ones you’re still managing. For us, we like to update on a quarterly basis but it will really depend on where you’re at in your career. If you’re starting out and working on building your business then you may want to update more frequently — it’s up to you.
So let’s talk about those benchmark case studies because this one is something a lot of people haven’t thought of. Just because you’re working with a client doesn’t mean you can’t have it in your portfolio! There are some clients we’ve worked with over the course of years, so if we waited until the campaign was done then we’d be waiting a while! To do a benchmark case study, you’ll do the same steps as above just in the project section you can say that it is an ongoing campaign and then in the results section you can let people know the timeframe for the results you’re presenting.
Highlight a Variety of Your Work
If you have a number of case studies under your belt, chances are you’re not going to highlight every single campaign you’ve ever worked on. At least not directly on your website if you decide to have it there. When you get to this point I recommend trying to highlight a variety of your work. First things first, pick your best case studies, and then after that try and pick out either diverse industries you’ve represented or different types of projects. This will help you showcase that your work is versatile and give you more options to direct a potential client to specific case studies that could be similar to what you’ve proposed for their business.
Be Transparent with Clients About Case Studies
Finally, if you’re going to be highlighting client work, especially if you're putting it right on your website like we do, then you want to be transparent to clients about that. We have a clause in all of our agreements that we can share results in our portfolio. Occasionally though we’ll be working with clients that have NDAs or who do not want that information shared publicly. Not all is lost though! Some of our clients have allowed us to share results excluding their brand name and any branded photos on our website. Or, they allow us to share their case studies on an as-needed basis privately. Sometimes you won’t be able to share at all, but try to work out a compromise if you can!
Another thing to keep in mind is how you showcase things if you are side-hustling or looking for a new job. Make sure you review your employee handbook or talk to HR to make sure you are allowed to showcase work you have done outside of your office. If you're interviewing at other firms, having a private portfolio is usually okay. If you’re freelancing or starting your own business though you don’t want to misrepresent that the client worked with you directly and not with the firm you were employed at. This can end up getting you in a sticky situation (cough, cough, pissing off) your current or past employer if you end up leaving. When we started our first company, we had to completely scrap all of the case studies we had at the time because highlighting them in any form would have caused problems for us. Then when I started Going Bold Studio, you’ll notice that I have a disclaimer on case studies that were done at my previous business.
The key with your portfolio is to work with what you’ve got and update it regularly! If you could use some inspo for creating your own, check out our portfolio. Or if you have other questions or want to set up a consulting call on this topic, give us a shout!
Anna Osgoodby
Founder of Going Bold Studio, Anna Osgoodby is an award-winning designer and social media marketing expert. With over a decade of experience, she specializes in helping small businesses with their social media, branding and Squarespace website design.
