If your job involves writing or if you’re looking to break into a field that requires it, your writing samples will play a huge role in the positions you’re able to land and the opportunities available to you. You need a way to showcase your work and make yourself stand out in front of readers, editors and hiring managers.
Clippings.me is a free service that allows writers, journalists and bloggers to create a free online portfolio of their work. Setup can be completed in minutes and there’s no coding required. If you’re ready to get started building your online writing portfolio and promoting your work, read on to learn how to do it and see several examples of portfolios that stand out.
The first step to building a portfolio is to sign up for a free Clippings.me account. It’s simple, free, and only takes a minute. If you want to make the process even faster, you can opt to connect your profile to your Twitter account and automatically import your bio and avatar.
Once you’re registered, you’ll be prompted to pick a theme for the look and feel of your portfolio; don’t worry, you can always go back and change this later. Then enter a bit more information about yourself to complete your bio. This might include education, previous work experience, topics you like to write about, relevant industry memberships, awards, and so on. Think of your Clippings.me bio like a bite-sized version of your resume.
Next, add your writing samples. You can do this by uploading static files from your computer or by linking to pieces that exist elsewhere online. You can add up to ten samples free of charge. Finally, add dividers and categorize your work. You can categorize it by topic, by the place it was published, by format, or in any other way that makes sense for your particular work.
It goes without saying that you’ll want to fill your portfolio with pieces you’re proud of, but a good Clippings.me portfolio is about more than just showcasing your top work. The best portfolios help the viewer get a feel for who the writer is and what he or she does best.
For example, if you’re seeking opportunities to cover politics, it wouldn’t make a lot of sense to fill your portfolio with soft, feature pieces, even if they’re great writing. Instead, you’d want to use samples that demonstrate your political expertise, interviewing prowess and objective approach.
Or, perhaps you’re a blogger who wants to turn writing into a full-time career. Though that funny post about your embarrassing college story got a bunch of likes on social media, it’s probably not the best sample you want to put forth in front of people who might be looking to hire you.
When selecting samples for your portfolio, ask yourself this: what impression do I want to make on people who see this? This will be a great compass to help you choose the right work samples to include.
The great thing about Clippings.me is that it was designed by writers, for writers, so it’s an intuitive way to organize many different kinds of writing. Here are a few examples of the types of portfolios you can create on Clippings.me and some quick tips for making yours shine.
Any content creator worth their salt knows that words alone are rarely enough to make a compelling story. Today’s readers seek an immersive experience that includes visuals, audio, interactive content and even newer mediums like virtual reality. Clippings.me is the perfect platform to showcase a broad range of multimedia content and your skills producing it.
Digital content creator Anne Gould is a great example of a writer who uses Clippings.me to showcase work in various multimedia formats. She has sections of her portfolio dedicated specifically to video and photo content and explicitly states in her bio that one of her core interests is telling stories through video. If there’s an editor out there looking for a visual content creator, Anne makes it easy for them to see why she’s a shoo-in for the role.
Not all writing is exposition. Dominica Taylor uses Clippings.me to showcase her copywriting work that helps brands establish their identity in front of prospective customers. This includes website copy, product descriptions and various marketing materials.
Dominica has added visuals to each sample to show how her writing comes to life when combined with creative package design and digital development. This would be an effective portfolio type for you if you write copy for ads, social media posts, printed materials or any other form of marketing collateral.
Not earning an income as a writer just yet? No problem. Even if writing professionally is still just a goal you’re working toward, Clippings.me can be harnessed as a useful outreach tool for building relationships and finding new opportunities.
Will Nacouzi is a student who uses his Clippings.me portfolio in this way. In his bio, Will advertises that he’s looking for internships and other opportunities to hone his skills as a writer. He also notes that he’s already earned his associate’s degree in journalism, which demonstrates his active commitment to advance in a career as a journalist. He uses the sample section to house the pieces he’s worked on while in school.
If you’re a student seeking an internship, a new grad looking for your first job or an aspiring writer hoping to break into the field, a Clippings.me portfolio can be a stepping stone to help you get there.
Blogging is a unique animal in that it can take so many different forms. Some writers blog as a hobby, others as a full-time profession. Some blog on serious journalistic topics like foreign affairs, others write about comic books or healthy cooking.
The beauty of Clippings.me is that it helps bloggers of all stripes position their work as more than just some ramblings on the internet. By creating a Clippings.me portfolio, you can help demonstrate the common thread that ties your blogging together in a professional-looking way.
Jacqueline Smith is a great example of this. She’s been in the blogging game a long time and uses her Clippings.me portfolio to demonstrate her expertise in a specific area: urban gardening.
Because her writing on this topic appears on many different blogs and media outlets, it would be hard to track her down as an expert via a simple Google search. But by using Clippings.me, she easily groups all her related work in one place, showing editors her broad experience writing about a rather niche topic.
There’s one more thing most great Clippings.me portfolios have in common: they give the reader additional ways to connect with the writer. Whether it’s by linking your social media profiles, sharing the link to your personal website or including your email address, be sure to round out your Clippings.me portfolio by giving the viewer a way to take the next step in building a relationship with you.
Whether you’re a hobby blogger or a professional journalist, copy editor or multimedia content creator, Clippings.me provides a simple and aesthetically pleasing way to organize and promote your work. Get started in minutes by signing up for a free Clippings.me account now.
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