21 Social Media Portfolio Examples & The Guide to Build Yours

Photographers and designers have it easy when it comes to building their portfolios. But how do you showcase social media strategy, or complicated ad campaigns with dozens of different ad sets in a portfolio? It’s actually not as difficult as you might think.

As long as you have the right framework and an easy-to-use portfolio builder tool like Copyfolio, you can write powerful case studies and build a stunning social media portfolio effortlessly.

In this post, we’ll show you how to present your social media projects, how to navigate displaying jobs done under an NDA, and we’ll give you a step-by-step guide to create your portfolio website in just about 30 minutes. Are you ready? Let’s jump right in!

This social media portfolio took 30 minutes to build in Copyfolio. Give it a try, it's free.

Looking for a quick and easy way to create your social media portfolio? Try Copyfolio and build a stunning portfolio website in less than an hour! It’s free, no credit card needed.

CONTENTS

Why you need a social media portfolio

The fact that there are more social media positions than ever doesn’t mean that it’s easy to snatch one. As the number of job postings grew, so did the competition. This means a curated personal feed won’t cut it anymore if you want to stand out in the crowd of applicants.

While your CV will give hiring managers a factual list of your previous jobs and accomplishments, your social media portfolio will show them your expertise and the results it brings. They’ll be able to see how you think, solve problems, and where your creative strengths lie.

How to present your projects in your social media portfolio

Even if you know that creating a social media portfolio would be a huge advantage, actually making it is easier said than done. Especially when it comes to presenting your projects.

For photographers, designers, and even writers it’s more straightforward, but social media jobs cover a lot of different aspects. You might be working on strategy, writing ad copy, setting up the targeting for the ads, or even designing the visuals to go along with your posts.

But no matter the type of task a project focuses on, when it comes to presenting them in your social media portfolio, it should be in the form of a case study.

Simplifying it, a case study is a piece of writing that tells the story of your professional project. Instead of just showing the end result, it gives insights into the process, illustrating your expertise more clearly.

Regardless of the type of project, there are certain elements that your social media case study should cover. You should write about:

The goals or KPIs. What was the project set out to achieve? Did you have any specific KPIs that you aimed to reach? Seeing the goals and objectives before anything else will set clear expectations, making it easier to evaluate the rest of your work.
Your reasoning & creative process. The finished piece is important, but how you get there is too, almost just as much. Giving insights into your creative process will show how it’d be working with you —even if the project is not a 100% match for what they have in mind.
The results and measurement. You can always say you’ve done something, but it’s best to prove by showing the actual piece of work. If it’s a complex project, you can always write a few lines to explain what each part is and how they’re connected.
Screenshots of the finished/published work. Even if it’s published online, it’s best practice to include screenshots of your work in your social media portfolio. You never know when a client or previous employer might decide to archive the posts or delete their social media profiles altogether.

While all social media case studies should cover the topics above, overall their content will be quite different depending on the specific task on hand.

Social media strategy: as your output might not include visuals or specific copy, writing about your thinking process and showing the results will be in focus here. Share some before and afters both for how the account looked and performed and include a testimonial for each project.
Account management: as this job can include multiple different aspects, it’s important to write about what exactly you were doing and what aspects of the account management process you delegated. Did you manage the editorial calendar or did you also create the content yourself? Make that clear and write about the impact your time managing the account had on its performance.
Copywriting for social media: it’s the writing samples specifically that you want to showcase here —but they’ll need a visual presentation to make them interesting. We recommend taking screenshots of individual posts and adding them to mockups. Using either a smartphone or laptop frame will instantly give it a more polished and professional look.
Advertising campaigns in social media: advertising campaigns also have many aspects. Write about which part you worked on: how it fits into the overall marketing strategy, setting up the actual ads, writing the ad copy, or making the creatives go with it. Also, include the measurements for each project —because what is an ad campaign without data anyway?

create a responsive writing portfolio website with copyfolio

What if you signed an NDA?

Having signed an NDA (or non-disclosure agreement) is what usually makes creating a social media portfolio so difficult. Because you might have done a lot of cool and professionally challenging projects —but what’s the point when you can’t disclose them?

Discuss portfolios before you sign the NDA

This tip won’t work for previous projects, but it’s something you should look out for with new assignments. If possible, bring up displaying the project in your portfolio before you sign the NDA. Often companies will let you write about the project with some special conditions like leaving out the company name or adding password protection to the case study.

Reach out to the company and ask for permission

Even if you already signed the NDA, you can always try to reach out to the company and ask for permission to use the project in your social media portfolio. If you have the time, you can create the case study in advance and send it over alongside your email.

Offering the above-mentioned adjustments (leaving out the name or adding a password) by yourself might also make it easier for them to say yes.

Use stock photos instead of real visuals

Normally you’d use images and the logo of the company to illustrate your social media case study. But even if they let you add the project to your portfolio, using these won’t be an option.

Presenting a case study without visuals would be dry and boring though, so you’ll need to find some kind of images to add to your page. Our recommendation is to find high-quality stock photos that relate to the industry of the client.

Even if they serve no purpose other than decoration, breaking up the text with these images will make the case study easier on the eyes. It’ll be more digestible in general, and hiring managers won’t get overwhelmed by a wall of text.

Focus on your creative process and thinking

Instead of getting lost in the client-specific details, focus on your creative process and how you overcame challenges. Even without names and details, reading how you manage and navigate typical social media scenarios will still give valuable insights into your expertise.

So in these not-so-public case studies, write more about how it came to be instead of what it actually was. For those parts you can always generalize: instead of naming the company, you can write something like “specialty coffee shop in Brisbane”, or “UK-based maternity clothing webshop”.

Overall, just make sure you communicate with the client, use password protection when you need to, and emphasize the generic aspects that show your skills. That way you’ll still be able to get valuable portfolio pieces from these kinds of projects.

screenshot of an example for presenting a social media strategy project in a generic way

How to create a social media portfolio

Knowing what to include and how to navigate around NDAs is one thing, but actually building your portfolio is a whole different story. Don’t worry though, it’s not as difficult as you’d think. As long as you choose a good method and tool, you can create your social media portfolio in under an hour.

Choose a format for your portfolio

Considering the nature of social media, paper-based printed portfolios are out of the question. But even within the realm of digital portfolios, there are many formats to choose from.

Create a PDF portfolio

One of the popular social media portfolio-building methods is showcasing projects in a PDF file.

You can customize it without limitations and make it match your personal brand completely. Just have it downloaded on your phone, and you’ll be able to send it over to anyone even on the go.

The downside is that once you send it, there’s no going back. The other person will have that file forever —so if you left a typo in or would need to update it, you’ll have to send another file.

As someone who works in social media, hosting your portfolio on one of your favorite social media platforms is definitely an option. You’ll have to do it carefully though: just reposting a bunch of content you’ve done for others won’t cut it.

You should still have the case study-centered mindset, and use the platform to introduce the different projects that you did. You can do a carousel post or story highlight for each project —or come up with another creative and platform-specific way. Just make sure you keep your portfolio separate from your personal accounts.

And while it can be effective, it’s hard to get it just right. So choose this method only if you’re confident that you’re going to get it right.

Build a portfolio site

Your best bet is to create a portfolio website that introduces you and showcases your top projects at the same time.

Having a website will let you organize all of your content in an easy-to-digest way. You can create separate pages for your about me section, your contact information, and all your projects. This way you can still have all the information without overwhelming the viewer with a 50-page document or a never-ending page.

You can always update your site and it’ll be instantly visible to whoever’s looking at it. So what could be a more professional way to share your portfolio than sending a link to your own website?

The easiest way to create your social media portfolio website is to use a website builder like Copyfolio. Here’s why:

You don’t need to know how to code as you’ll be working with a “what you see is what you get” type of visual editor.
You can focus your time on writing, as setting the site up and making design changes will only take a click or two.
With no loading screens and lengthy tutorials, you won’t sit around feeling bored or confused. Building will always be quick and easy.
Prompts and guiding questions will help you write your case studies —so you’ll never have to worry about not knowing where to start.
One-click mockup frames make it easy to create sleek, professional graphics without using any design software.

To show you how quick it really is, let’s see a step-by-step guide to creating a social media portfolio website with Copyfolio:

Sign up. It only takes a minute as all we’re asking for is your name and job title —these will become the title of your website.
We’ll be waiting for you with a site already set up. It’ll have a home, an about, and a contact page, and we’ll even generate a personalized tagline for you. You can rewrite it if you want, or just leave it as it is.
Upload a picture of yourself to your home page. This will be people’s first impression of you and a photo will help make a more personal connection.
Add your projects to the bottom of your home page. Follow the prompts or paste in your pre-written case studies and illustrate them with a few images. Just like we outlined above.
Write your about page and fill in your contact information. Once someone’s done reading through your projects, they might want to learn more about you or get in touch. So tell them about yourself, potentially add your social media manager resume and make it easy for them to reach out.

And there you have it —a complete portfolio website, in 5 easy steps. Do you want to give it a try? Sign up to Copyfolio today and create your own social media portfolio for free!