By Social media portfolios are curated collections of work—which can include past social media campaigns, strategies employed, analytics, and unique content—that display an agency’s expertise and results in the realm of social media marketing.
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If you’re asking yourself how do I build a social marketing portfolio, read on to learn exactly how to sell more social media packages by strategically showcasing your best work in a portfolio.
Table of Contents
- Why you need a social media portfolio
- Essential tools for creating a social media portfolio
- A step-by-step guide to creating a winning social media portfolio
- Frequently asked questions
Why you need a social media portfolio
In a hotly competitive digital marketing environment, having a social media portfolio can be a powerful differentiator for your agency, providing a tangible showcase of your proficiency in managing and maximizing social media platforms. Here’s why creating a social media management portfolio should be on your radar:
- Provides social proof: Social media portfolios allow potential clients to see that other businesses trust you with their social media marketing.
- Showcases original content: A social media portfolio can demonstrate your ability to create engaging content that resonates with diverse audiences.
- Demonstrates return on investment (ROI): By including key metrics from past campaigns in your social media manager portfolio samples, you can communicate your agency’s ability to drive measurable outcomes via social media efforts.
Essential tools for creating a social media portfolio
Before diving into the “what” of social media specialist portfolio creation, let’s dig into the “how”. The right tools can dramatically simplify the process of creating a portfolio that wows clients and generates more business for your agency. Plus, with these solutions, you don’t have to be an experienced designer to put together an impressive portfolio.
Design and image editing tools
The social media space is highly visual, so any successful social media marketing portfolio should include images. Whether it’s images from past campaigns, mockups of client social media accounts, or infographics, design and image editing tools make it easy to prepare and present these visual elements attractively.
So, which tools should you invest in?
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Photoshop is a premium tool that’s generally considered the gold standard when it comes to image editing. It can be used for everything from basic image editing to advanced compositions. Plus, you’ll get use out of it well beyond the creation of your social media management portfolio. If you regularly process images, it just might be a worthwhile investment for your agency.
Canva
A more accessible and user-friendly option is Canva. Just because it touts itself as suitable for beginners and those with no design or image editing experience, doesn’t mean it isn’t an impressive solution. It includes a vast library of elements, customizable templates, and editing options, making it easy to create professional images, documents, and infographics quickly. In fact, since there is a bit more of a learning curve involved in getting familiar with Photoshop, Canva just might be the better option if you don’t have experience with Adobe’s Creative Suite.
Presentation and document creation tools
Once you have the visuals prepared for your social media portfolio, it’s time to put them together in a visually appealing and intuitive document. This is where presentation and document creation tools come into play.
Microsoft PowerPoint and Google Slides
These solutions will enable your agency to arrange its social media campaigns, strategies, and results in a visually attractive way that’s easy for your clients to understand.
If you haven’t used these familiar platforms in a while, it’s worth noting that both PowerPoint and Google Slides support multimedia content tools support multimedia content. This means you can incorporate images, graphics, and video clips, adding depth and texture to your presentations.
Microsoft Word and Google Docs
Similarly, detailed written content, such as case studies, project descriptions, and client testimonials, can provide more robust details of your work when needed. Software solutions you likely already use, like Microsoft Word and Google Docs, are perfect for creating these written portions of your social media portfolio.
Their familiar formatting options and user-friendly interfaces make it easy to produce well-structured and aesthetically pleasing documents. More than just text processors, these tools also allow for the incorporation of images, infographics, and other media, enhancing your portfolio’s visual appeal.
Website and portfolio hosting platforms
Ideally, your social media portfolio should be available both online and offline. You can create a PDF or slide presentation using the solutions we’ve discussed so far, but having a digital hub where your portfolio can be accessed is also wise. That way, prospects have the possibility of finding your portfolio on their own.
Website Pro
You don’t need to create a separate website to host your social media portfolio. Instead, make sure it’s easily discoverable on your agency’s website. WordPress' websites are particularly well-suited to hosting portfolios since their built-in blog feature can be customized to create dynamic posts that autopopulate with the information you provide for each case study. With a WordPress website builder like Website Pro, you can have a completely custom agency website—and online portfolio—up and running in no time.
Behance and Dribble
Additionally, portfolio-specific platforms like Behance and Dribbble are designed explicitly for hosting creative work. These sites offer an opportunity for agencies to share their social media portfolios within a creative community, providing added exposure and the potential for networking. They support various formats—images, videos, presentations, and more—and allow for detailed project descriptions, enabling you to provide as much background as you want about your work.
Video editing and production tools
Video content has exploded in popularity on social media, and showcasing your expertise in this area has become a must.
Adobe Premiere Pro
Adobe Premiere Pro is an industry-leading video editing tool used by professionals worldwide. It allows for the creation and editing of high-quality videos, showing potential clients that your agency is adept at producing engaging, scroll-stopping video content—an increasingly important skill in social media marketing.
Video hosting platforms
Once you’ve produced videos, they need to be hosted and shared.
Platforms like YouTube and Vimeo offer user-friendly hosting services and boast large active user bases, making them excellent places to host your video content. Once your videos are hosted somewhere, you can embed them in your agency website, so that visitors can view them without you having to use up storage on your site.
A step-by-step guide to creating a winning social media portfolio
Now that you know what tools to use to create your social media marketing portfolio, you can get to the fun part: creating it. Just follow these steps one by one, and by the end, you’ll have created a seriously powerful and persuasive sales tool.
1. Set your objectives
Any well-executed project starts with a solid understanding of your objectives, and creating a social media portfolio is no exception. By getting clear on what you want to accomplish through the creation of your portfolio, you’re far more likely to meet your goals than if you were to dive right in without a plan.
Find your purpose
Determine the purpose of your social media portfolio. Are you aiming to attract new clients, showcase your expertise within your niche, or demonstrate the success of your recent campaigns? Defining this purpose will help you focus your efforts and ensure that your portfolio effectively communicates your desired message.
Identify your target audience
Who are you trying to reach with your portfolio?
Tailoring your portfolio to their needs and expectations is key to capturing their attention. Consider the characteristics and interests of your audience to align your content and design choices with their preferences.
For example, if you’re targeting potential clients, highlight your best work and emphasize the results you have achieved for previous clients. Incorporate case studies, testimonials, and measurable metrics to showcase the impact of your social media campaigns.
On the other hand, if your objective is to demonstrate your expertise, focus on thought leadership content, industry insights, and examples of your strategic planning.
Understanding your target audience also allows you to customize the design and tone of your portfolio. A more professional and polished design may be appropriate for a corporate audience, while a more creative and visually engaging approach may resonate with a younger and more artistic audience.
2. Curate your work
Now that you have a clear understanding of your objectives, it’s time to cull your past clients down to a selection of your best work for your social media portfolio.
This step ensures that you don’t bog down your audience with too much information, instead highlighting your skills, expertise, and track record of success through your best work.
Start by choosing a range of your most impressive and successful social media campaigns or projects. Look for those that align closely with the objectives you established in Step 1, and demonstrate your ability to deliver meaningful results. Select work that showcases your creativity, strategic thinking, and ability to engage and impact your target audience. If you work with white-label social media pros, you may have a lot of campaign data to sift through, so take your time to find the best projects.
To create a well-rounded portfolio, include a mix of platforms, client industries, and campaign types. Showcase campaigns across popular platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, or any other relevant channels in which you have expertise.
Try to include projects from different industries to highlight your ability to navigate diverse business landscapes. Showcasing your experience across various sectors can increase your appeal, as long as they’re relevant to your target audience. Including cases of different business structures—such as businesses with multiple locations—can make your portfolio even more effective.
Finally, ensure that your selected work represents a mix of campaign types. You might include social media portfolio examples of:
- Content creation
- Community management
- Influencer collaborations
- Paid advertising campaigns
- Unique and relevant strategies you have implemented
This variety will communicate your holistic understanding of social media marketing and your ability to leverage different approaches for optimal results.
3. Dig into the data
To impress today’s increasingly savvy consumer, you need to substantiate the effectiveness of your social media campaigns and demonstrate solid results. There’s no better way to do this than with data.
By presenting concrete numbers and metrics in your social media portfolio, you can quantify the success and impact of your agency’s work, making it more compelling and convincing for your audience. Here’s how:
- Gather data: Start by collecting data and analytics from the social media campaigns included in your social media portfolio. This can include engagement rates, reach, impressions, click-through rates, conversions, and—crucially—ROI. Use analytics tools from provided by each social media platform you’ve worked on, like Facebook Insights or LinkedIn Analytics, to gather these metrics accurately. Your social media management platform should also have built-in analytics.
- Highlight the most impressive metrics: Feature the metrics that are most relevant to your objectives and the goals of each campaign. For instance, if your goal was to increase brand awareness, focus on metrics like reach and impressions. If your aim was to drive conversions or generate leads, emphasize click-through rates and conversion rates.
- Provide context and benchmarks: Help your audience understand the impact of your work by comparing the performance of your campaigns to industry standards or previous benchmarks. For example, if your campaign achieved a higher engagement rate compared to the industry average, emphasize that as a significant achievement.
4. Use design principles in your layout
When it comes to the layout of your social media portfolio, the visual presentation plays a huge role in capturing the attention of your audience and leaving a lasting impression. The same information can read as either overwhelming or clear and understandable depending on how it’s laid out.
This is also an opportunity to strengthen your brand identity by incorporating your branding throughout the social media marketer portfolio design.
Use your brand elements
Start by designing a layout that is visually appealing and aligned with your brand identity. Use a color scheme that complements your agency’s branding, ensuring consistency with your logo, website, or any other marketing materials you’ve published.
Incorporate your brand’s fonts and other visual elements, such as icons or shapes, to create a cohesive and recognizable look. Be sure to stick to a consistent, clear font hierarchy as you lay out your social media portfolio: this is one of the most important components of making a document feel neat and readable.
Consider the structure
The structure of your social media specialist portfolio will depend on factors like how many case studies you include and how detailed you want to get. Regardless of these variables, your portfolio should be easily navigated by anyone.
That means using a clear and intuitive navigation system with a table of contents and links, clear headings, subheadings, and sections, and a logical flow that makes it effortless for your audience to find what they’re interested in.
Prioritize image quality
Images are a must in any social media portfolio, but low-quality visuals can make it feel crudely thrown together, so make sure to use high-quality files that make a strong impact. These might include a mix of photos, infographics, screenshots, videos, and other graphic elements: whatever you use, make sure they’re clear, crisp, and optimized for web viewing. For the website version of your social media portfolio, ensure images look good on different browsers and devices.
Look for sample portfolios for social media managers to get your creative juices flowing before diving into your design.
5. Provide context throughout
To give your audience a comprehensive understanding of your social media campaigns or projects, guide them by providing context and detailed descriptions of each item in your social media portfolio.
The copy accompanying each case study should help your audience understand the following:
- The objectives of the campaign: Explain what you aimed to achieve and why it was important. From brand awareness and reputation management to sales of a new product, clearly articulate the goals you set out to accomplish.
- Target audience insights: Describe who you were trying to reach and engage with your campaign. This could include demographic information, psychographic characteristics, or any other relevant details that help paint a clear picture of the target audience.
- Strategies employed to achieve your objectives: Outline the tactics, channels, and tools used to execute your campaigns. Discuss the reasoning behind your social media ideas and strategies and how they aligned with the target audience’s preferences and behaviors.
- Key challenges you faced during the implementation of the campaign: Whether it was budget constraints, time limitations, or industry-specific obstacles, explain the hurdles you encountered. This demonstrates your ability to adapt and find solutions in challenging situations.
- Innovative or unique approaches: Did you leverage emerging social media platforms, create viral content, or employ super-successful influencer collaborations? Detail the creative and strategic decisions that set your campaigns apart.
This step helps your audience appreciate the thought process and effort behind your social media portfolio examples. You may also want to include an overview of your new client questionnaire to give prospects a peek into your collaborative process.
6. Tap into the power of social proof
Social media marketing is all about social proof, so why not incorporate it into your social media portfolio as well? To enhance the credibility and trustworthiness of your social media marketer portfolio, don’t hesitate to incorporate testimonials and client feedback.
Positive reviews and testimonials from happy customers provide evidence of the ROI your agency produced and validate the effectiveness and value of your social media services.
Include testimonials that highlight the positive experiences and outcomes clients have had while working with you. These testimonials can come in different formats depending on your preferences and the design of your portfolio: written quotes, video testimonials, or even screenshots of positive feedback received through social media platforms are all appropriate. Whatever format you choose, focus on testimonials that specifically address the impact and results of your social media campaigns or services.
Pro tip: Details matter
Generic statements like "great work" or "excellent service" may not have as much impact as testimonials that highlight specific achievements, outcomes, or improvements attributed to your social media efforts. The more specific and tangible the feedback, the better it reflects your expertise and the value you provide. For your prospects, this offers a chance to imagine themselves as your satisfied clients, nudging them toward conversion.
7. Assume the role of a thought leader
Your prospects want to work with someone who knows their stuff. To establish yourself as an authority in the field of social media marketing, make a regular habit of showcasing your industry knowledge, expertise, and thought leadership in this area. Doing so allows you to position yourself—and your agency—as credible and trusted.
Add linkable content for credibility
Most of this will take place outside your social media management portfolio, but you can provide links to your work within the design of the portfolio. For example, you might demonstrate your expertise by publishing blog posts, case studies, and whitepapers related to social media marketing. The case studies may be included in your portfolio, and you can link to your most interesting blog posts and whitepapers throughout. This way, you can keep your portfolio as a social media specialist focused, while still providing more examples of your thought leadership.
Highlight any awards and certifications
Make sure to highlight any awards, certifications, or other recognition you’ve received as a social media marketer. Details like logos or badges of reputable awards you have won or certifications you have obtained can instantly make your social media portfolio look more impressive. These achievements validate your expertise and demonstrate your commitment to staying current and up-to-date with industry standards and practices.
8. Refresh your social media specialist portfolio regularly
Creating a social media manager portfolio isn’t a one-off exercise. Once your portfolio is finalized, schedule periodic check-ins to see if it needs to be updated. This will help you maintain a fresh and relevant representation of your work and capabilities.
Regular updates demonstrate your ongoing activity, growth, and commitment to staying current in a constantly-changing field. Your prospects may look at your portfolio several times before committing to working with you, and if they see it has been refreshed each time, it reflects positively on your agency.
So, what should you do during your periodic updates?
Add new projects, campaigns, and achievements to your portfolio as they occur. Highlight your most recent and impactful work to showcase your ongoing ability to deliver successful outcomes.
Just as importantly, you should remove outdated or irrelevant content from your portfolio. Assess the relevance and alignment of old projects with your current goals and objectives. Removing outdated or irrelevant projects ensures that your portfolio remains streamlined and focused on showcasing your best and most recent work.
The ideal schedule for a social media portfolio refresh depends on how often you have new campaigns to showcase. For example, quarterly, or semi-annually may be best. Whatever you decide on, set a calendar reminder to make sure it gets done.
9. Make it easy to find
It would be a shame to go through all the work of creating a beautiful, persuasive social media portfolio only to have it languish in some dusty corner of your website, never to be seen. To maximize the reach and impact of your social media designer portfolio, it’s crucial to make it easily accessible and shareable.
Firstly, make sure that your social media marketer portfolio is easily accessible on your website. Integrate it into your website’s primary navigation menu rather than just a footer menu. Don’t hesitate to include additional links to your portfolio prominently throughout your website to enhance discoverability.
Remember to optimize your portfolio for social media management for mobile devices. You can count on a sizable portion of your audience visiting your website while mobile browsing, so it’s important to make your portfolio responsive on smartphones and tablets.
In addition to website accessibility, shareability should be a top priority. Include social sharing buttons or links within your portfolio that allow visitors to easily share your work on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram. This facilitates the organic spread of your portfolio among their networks, potentially reaching more prospective clients.
10. Get the word out
Once you’ve created your social media portfolio, promoting it should be an ongoing practice. Here are some effective strategies to promote your portfolio:
- Share on social media: Use your social media channels to share your portfolio with your followers. Create platform-optimized posts that highlight key projects, achievements, or testimonials from your portfolio.
- Include in email newsletters: If you have an email newsletter, feature your portfolio in relevant editions. Provide a brief overview and a direct link to your portfolio, encouraging subscribers to explore your work further. Consider segmenting your email list to target specific audiences with tailored portfolio highlights.
- Engage professional networks: Leverage professional networking platforms like LinkedIn to showcase your portfolio. Update your LinkedIn profile to include a link to your portfolio, and share posts or articles related to your work with your connections.
- Collaborate with influencers or industry peers: Seek collaborations with influencers or professionals in your industry. Collaborative content, guest blogging, or interviews can help expose your portfolio to their audiences and extend your reach.
- Submit to relevant directories or platforms: Explore industry-specific directories or platforms where you can submit your portfolio for exposure.
Frequently asked questions
Should I include metrics and analytics in my social media portfolio?
Yes, including metrics and analytics in your social media design portfolio is strongly recommended. These data-powered insights help quantify the success and impact of your work, providing solid evidence of your capabilities and the results you’ve achieved for clients.
How do I make my social media portfolio stand out?
To make your social media portfolio stand out, focus on showcasing your unique value proposition, highlight your best work and results, use compelling visuals and design, provide clear and concise descriptions, and demonstrate thought leadership through industry insights and contributions. Differentiate yourself by emphasizing your creativity, strategy, and innovative approaches.
