Behance: A Cool Way To Spread Your Portfolio Reach

I may have been just way behind the game in this regard but the other day I came across a cool way to share one's portfolio: Behance. In a nutshell, it's a social network similar to LinkedIn targeted more towards creative professionals. What's cool about it is the way they allow you to upload pictures, text, sound bytes and video into an organized, clean platform.

When uploading your portfolio projects, you are given the capability to divide up your work into different categories. For example, in my portfolio, I have all of the efforts from the Imagewest "High 5 to 5 Years"promotional camapaign all in one folder, keeping all the components of that campaign effort together. This includes screenshots of microsites, viral videos and screenshots of our social media efforts. I also have a similar setup for some of the social media efforts I've done with Hinda.

The video component is cool as well. Behance provides a video layout providing space for your main video along with a brief slideshow of screenshots highlighting key parts of your work. For example, I've placed "Breaking Free" as a project folder using this format. Not only is the video at the top of the page but also has screenshots of key scenes in that short film shown below.

After each project folder is completed, Behance offers you the opportunity to list a short description, additional work credits to other team members and even a creative commons licensing page for copyright purposes. Behance also allows you to connect with other Behance members to share work, provides a direct URL to your portfolio and as of this week links up with your LinkedIn profile to display your portfolio there as well.

For those wanting to show off their portfolio without having to spend a lot of money on shipping, this is a great service to look into. You can feel free to check out my online portfolio by clicking on the "Digital Portfolio" link in my sidebar or simply clicking here. My portfolio is still a work in progress as I haven't added everything yet.

Do any of you know of similar services like Behance or use Behance yourself? What do you think of it...useful?