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How should you go about creating a portfolio and pricing format for freelance social media management?
I’m curious about what others do here as if one were a graphic designer they would have a website to showcase their work, and they would have some standard PDF, or several to pick from depending, to send to prospective clients, breaking down the price of the work (ex. logo, website design, etc.)
I’m relatively new to social media management as I’ve only taken on a few side gigs in the past year. I’m getting approached for it more often and I think that I should create something that I can just send off to people, like a portfolio, and a pricing of packages that I generally do…
For other freelancers out there, do you have a website? Do you send some kind of standardized quote PDF upon request? How much information do you give out to potential clients about numbers, conversion, and so-on from other projects?
I don’t have a massive portfolio, just one big job, my own social media profiles, and a few small things that I did for fun just to see if they’d work out. Due to this I don’t have massive numbers to show aside from the one actual job. I mostly get asked due to people’s interest in the curation of my own Instagrams (I do other design work – but I’ve also been approached from interested in my personal accounts) – and this is mostly just visual, because, in terms of my personal life and work, I’m not interested in gaining massive numbers of followers. Based on this, what would be appropriate to include in the first version of a portfolio for potential clients?
EDIT: I just have to say WOW you guys, great advice here! I hope that others find this useful too!
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5 Replies
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Following to get the same advice!
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Remindme! 3 days
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Yes, I have a website that has a portfolio along with an about me, contact page, and page for my freelance writing and why they should work with me. My portfolio consists of highlight pieces from my work (screenshots or videos) and a humblebrag description.
I do have a pricing package pdf that can be viewed from my website for transparency. But if a client is seriously interested I make a pretty slide deck for them including what I want to do for them and pricing. From there they sign a contract.
I promise nothing. Organic social media is passive marketing. They WILL get results but I don’t like promising a time frame.
In your portfolio, I would include the posts you’re most proud of. Write something about how vanity numbers don’t matter and what you really want is an engaged community, which you can build for them.
Hope this helps!
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Option A (Decent): Making a good-looking portfolio of work you’ve done on other clients or stuff you made up.
Option B (Power move): Send a potential client a PDF of designs and mock-ups for their brand / account that they’re free to use, today. Regardless of them hiring you or not.
Seriously. Option A is the norm. Option B is what will set you apart and let a potential client know that you’re serious and capable.
To do this just imagine exactly what you would do for the client in the first few day’s of working on their account. Put it all in a PDF, make a mock-up social media Feed (if you’re a designer you should be able to do this but you can all several different planning apps to do this) with your proposed designs to let them see how it would look and include that too. This will be ten times better than showing them “examples” of your work.
If you’re really worried about them just taking the designs and leaving then you can watermark them, but if they’re a serious company they’ll be really silly to steal your stuff instead of just hiring you and having a constant supply of your work.
Edit: Forgot to add this, a good state of mind to keep while doing this is that no work you do is in vain. If the potential client passes on you, your work has not been a waste. Alter the designs slightly to fit a similar potential client and send it to them. Keep a file of all the proposals you’ve done in categories depending on the type of client. Use and repeat as much as you want and you’ll be developing your skills tremendously in the process as well.
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I do have a portfolio with the projects I worked on the last 8 years. I used to work at advertising agencies and started to work as a freelancer last year. I usually have two types of clients:
– direct clients (small business, professionals). I struggle with that a lot. Most of the direct clients that I prospect usually like my work and my proposal but “have no money to hire me”. I don’t send standardized quotes and always make a customized proposal based on what the client needs. I have a system to calculate my hourly rate though, which I’m always transparent with the client about. Sometimes this works but I haven’t build a long-term contract with this kind of client yet since I mostly offer social media strategy and data reports. I don’t like to work on the daily management on SM itself because I see a very demanding behavior on these kinds of clients and I find it not worth it for the rate I charge.
– agencies. I find this easier to manage. I send messages on Linkedin and emails presenting myself a lot, with my cv and portfolio and saying that I’m available for freelance projects only. I also use my contacts a lot to do that, I ask my ex-colleagues about open positions or needs that the agencies they work for may have and that can possibly match my skills. I got my last freelancer gig like this and managed to build a long-term contract with them because they liked my work.
About the portfolio and the information sharing: there are agencies/clients that ask me to send them internal materials (strategies I built for clients, presentations and reports that were made by me) but I never share them and it also makes me second guess about working for the place that asks something like that. They know that presentations, reports and strategies can’t be shared because this kind of material is for agency and client’s eyes only. I only share results that are public (like metrics from social media channels that are still live) or information that had been previously released from the agency or client itself (like results that are on campaign video cases when the campaign is running for advertising awards or stuff that the client shared with the press etc). In my portfolio I talk about the project, share public results, some content and show how everything worked together (I explain a bit of the strategy).
When working with direct clients I always ask them what can be shared about the project. If you want to take a look at my portfolio, PM me and I’ll be happy to share with you and talk about the social media freelancing stuff as well. 🙂
