Behind the Scenes: Creating Foleon's 2023 Year-in-Review

By Penny Warnock

Behind the Scenes: Creating Foleon's 2023 Year-in-Review

It's that time again. It’s the season of yearly look-backs, reports, and annual kick-offs. As we move into a new year, we're taking a moment to reflect. We’re celebrating the milestones, the innovations, and the slew of captivating content of the past year, all encapsulated in our Year-in-Review Foleon Doc.

This annual review is not just another roundup of our achievements but an interactive, engaging journey through the year. Within, you'll discover a story highlighting our platform's enhancements and celebrating our customers' remarkable accomplishments and our team's collective successes.

Let's uncover the valuable insights, content myths, and design takeaways that can inspire and guide you in creating your year-in-review.

 

Creating Foleon’s Year-in-Review

Annual reports can often fall through the content cracks. Rather than seeing them as an opportunity to engage, inspire, and impress, a year in review can quickly become a chore. 

Creating an immersive reading experience using interactive elements to present annual insights makes your content stand out and is more fun to design. If you’re wondering where to start, here’s how we structured Foleon’s Year in Review.

 

Focus on value-based product highlights

Last year, the Foleon platform saw many exciting changes. A lot happened from the launch of Review Mode to the introduction of Content Builder and Brand Kit.

Rather than listing every update, we bundled the features in value-based clusters so you know precisely why these updates are worth getting excited about. For example, we’ve grouped the Content Builder and the Content Studio as part of our Design features spotlight.


Screenshot 2024-01-23 at 14.23.52

💡 Our advice: Take a value-driven approach to your product updates. Group key features and releases into pillars that support your vision and mission, giving readers a clear understanding of your developments. 

Discover more product highlights on our Product Roadmap.

 

Get creative with data

What year-in-review would be complete without data? Data and insights provide quantifiable evidence of your company's yearly performance. Stakeholders rely on accurate and comprehensive data to foster transparency, which is necessary to build and maintain trust.

Naturally, this section of an annual report is always the most riveting part. 

Kidding. It’s not, but it can be. 

Leveraging animated data visualizations can bring those less-than-exciting numbers to life, making data more exciting and engaging, which helps to communicate more effectively.

 

💡 Our advice: Take your performance numbers further by integrating interactive elements such as dynamic animations or motion graphics with your data. This approach strengthens the impact of your figures, grabbing the reader’s attention more than just another data table. 

Watch on-demand: Creating your year-in-review.

 

Showcase noteworthy customer programs

Part of our core beliefs at Foleon is empowering our customers to become confident content creators. The launch of the Foleon Academy is a 2023 achievement we had to include in the year-in-review.

The Foleon Academy GIF

Dive into this lesson on how to create your own year-in-review Doc.

💡 Our advice: Showcase your customer programs or initiatives. Including these showcases your commitment to supporting customers' learning and growth, providing value beyond your core products or services.

 

Celebrate the customer community

Our customers are the core of our community and the driving force behind our platform. Their work with our platform and the content they create hold a special place in our hearts; every Doc is a winner in our books. This year, we're thrilled to see we were not alone in this. 

Many of our customers received well-deserved recognition for their exceptional content. No annual report could be complete without celebrating the Foleon community’s accomplishments. 

Screenshot 2024-01-25 at 11.04.52

💡 Our advice: Elevate your year in review by weaving in stories and content from your customers. Remember, your customers are your most authentic brand advocates. Their triumphs mirror your own. This showcases the tangible impact of your product or services and strengthens the shared success narrative.

 

Infuse storytelling

At Foleon, we're not just facilitators; we're creators too. We've poured our passion and creativity into creating compelling stories throughout the year. In our year-in-review, we showcase a selection of our standout content celebrating our journey and the strides we've made, like:

  • The Content Round-up: The monthly marketing digest, where we write about what’s in/out. 
  • Wednesdays with Wessel: Our weekly design rendezvous on LinkedIn.
  • Faces of Foleon: A closer look at the brilliant minds behind our product, unveiling their inspirations and aspirations.

 

 

💡 Our advice: Remember, your annual report can be more than a summary of achievements. Select the content that defines your year and tells your story. Engage with your audience through these narratives and let your report reflect your brand's unique voice and vision.

 

Add a human touch

Central to our success, our team's tireless efforts have propelled our platform forward. There is no Foleon without the fantastic people behind the business and the product. That’s why no year-in-review could be complete without celebrating our Foleon Fam.

Screenshot 2024-01-25 at 11.01.36

 

💡 Our advice: Remember the power of human stories in crafting your annual report. By showcasing the individuals behind your brand, you highlight your company's achievements and build an emotional connection with your audience.

Consider adding an interactive or creative element that resonates with your company's culture and spirit, like a playlist or photo carousel, to engage your readers and leave them with a lasting impression of your brand's personality.

 

Ready to dive in? Read the full 2023 Foleon Year-in-Review.

 

Conclusion

If you take one insight from this blog, let it be that year-in-review documents are far more than a collection of statistics and corporate milestones. Each piece of content is an opportunity to create meaningful interactions with your audience. 

As you craft your annual report, think about the stories your audience is craving and how they can resonate not just on a business level but on a human one, too. Let's continue to innovate, inspire, and transform how we share our stories. Here's to another year of growth, creativity, and success in your content journey.

Penny Warnock

Penny Warnock is the Content Marketer extraordinaire here at Foleon. With a background in SaaS, product marketing, journalism, and brand building, Penny is passionate about storytelling and generating engaging content across various digital channels.

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