Before you select your projects, you need to understand who you are targeting and what they are looking for. Are you applying for a specific job or role? Are you pitching to a potential client or partner? Are you building your personal brand or network? Depending on your goal, you may want to emphasize different aspects of your content strategy work, such as your research methods, your content design, your metrics and results, or your collaboration skills. You may also want to tailor your portfolio to the industry, niche, or domain of your audience, and show how you can solve their specific problems or needs.
Associate Director - Marketing | Content Strategy, Branding, Customer Experience
Knowing your audience will help you determine the purpose of your portfolio - the target industry, domain, company size, type etc. . Once the purpose is clearly defined, you can choose the projects that resonates with that audience. And yes! As rightly communicated, based on the audience need, you can prioritize the selection criteria such as the project's impact, outcomes, innovation, collaboration, or any other aspects. However, do try to bring out the elements of adaptability, versatility and flexibility by showcasing a diverse range of projects for different industries, target audiences, content types, and project scopes.
I completely agree with it. Without knowing the target audience, one cannot pitch his/her services right. For example, I first understood the domains of real estate, interior design and home improvement. Then I started pitching my writing and content marketing services to the industry leaders.
Much like creating separate categories of resumes, I have separate categories of portfolios. I usually create a full master deck and then delete or re-arrange my slides depending on my audience. For example: If I’m submitting as a content creator, I move my content samples to the top of the portfolio and delete my slides on PR since they’re less relevant. If I’m submitting as a producer, I’ll move my produced projects to the top of the deck and change the copy around my PR slides to emphasize coverage I’ve gotten for plays and series I’ve produced instead of content.
You don't need to include every project you have ever worked on in your portfolio. In fact, doing so may overwhelm or confuse your audience, and dilute your message. Instead, focus on the projects that demonstrate your value and expertise as a content strategist, and that align with your audience's expectations and interests. A good rule of thumb is to select 3-5 projects that showcase your best work and your range of skills. You can always add more projects later, or create different versions of your portfolio for different purposes.
Yes, add three or four high-quality articles to your portfolio. That's more than enough instead of numerous poor quality articles.
For each project, you want to tell a clear and engaging story that shows how you applied your content strategy skills and knowledge to achieve a specific goal or outcome. You can use a simple framework, such as the STAR method (Situation, Task, Action, Result), to structure your project description and highlight your role and responsibilities, your challenges and solutions, your actions and decisions, and your results and impact. You also want to include evidence and examples of your work, such as screenshots, links, samples, testimonials, or data, to support your claims and showcase your deliverables.
Yes, showing the published piece isn’t enough! Come prepared to discuss your contribution to the project, how you worked with any internal stakeholders to achieve the final deliverable, and even any snafus you ran into working internally or with the client and how you and your team overcame them.
Your portfolio should look and feel like a cohesive and polished piece of work, not a random collection of projects. You want to use a consistent and professional format for your portfolio, whether it is a website, a PDF, a slide deck, or another medium. You should follow some basic design principles, such as using a clear and readable font, a simple and appealing color scheme, a logical and intuitive navigation, and a balanced and attractive layout. You should also include some essential information, such as your name, contact details, summary, skills, and social media links, to make it easy for your audience to learn more about you and reach out to you.
Your portfolio is not a static document that you create once and forget about. It is a dynamic and evolving representation of your content strategy career and achievements. You should update and refine your portfolio regularly, to reflect your current skills and experience, your latest projects and results, and your changing goals and aspirations. You should also seek feedback and suggestions from others, such as mentors, peers, or clients, to improve your portfolio and make it more effective and relevant.
"I believe that effective communication needs to stop people in their tracks. Give them an experience that resonates hard to the core of the brand. Be BOLD. Be AMAZING. Be PASSIONATE. Don’t BLEND IN. It’s crowded out there, differentiate."
It’s important to include a challenging moment or problem that you created a great solution for. Nobody has a perfect run all the time so by highlighting a challenge it shows authenticity and honesty and this goes a long way to building trust. In addition, it highlights that you’re capable of achieving success despite being faced with a less than perfect scenario. If people are looking at multiple CVs or multiple companies while considering who to hire, they can get a little research fatigued. By showcasing something that most people would not include you’re giving yourself a better chance at being remembered.