Knowing how to use social media icons when designing Business Cards is can provide a stepping stone to securing business from new contacts. Digital Journal heard from experts at Solo Press. To aid companies in developing their marketing strategy.
This advice offers insight on the tools to involve social media in Business Card design in innovative ways.
What are social media icons?
Social media icons are the brand logos of each platform. By including them on a Business Card, this enables the company to advertise their presence on these platforms to their customers.
Social media icons:
- Attract customers
- Build brand loyalty
- Expand your potential consumer base
- Reduce marketing costs (it’s free!)
- Increase revenue
It is important only to add the social media icons the business is most engaged with or that customers will find most helpful. For example, for a visual business, Instagram is the best platform for to show off a business to customers. For those offering a more educative, informational service, then Twitter or Facebook are the better platforms for to broadcast this message on.
In terms of implementation, if a firm uses an icon it is important that to leave a platform-specific tag so readers will know what to search.
Why should you include social media icons on your Business Cards?
Methods of communication have changed rapidly within the last decade. Keeping up with the fast-paced marketing world is essential to maximise growth. Previously, a website would have been the primary place to send your customers next.
For customers, much is about convenience. Enquiring about a business through social media requires minimal effort. In contrast, writing to an email address would require the customer to switch platforms and compose a more thought-out response
Including social media icons on your Business Cards helps to make them:
- Memorable
- Relevant
- Trustworthy
- Actionable
By this:
- Memorable: Social media icons are instantly recognised by most.
- Relevant: A vast majority of customers are on social media.
- Trustworthy: By providing customers additional accounts to check out, this shows g them that the business is a professional, multi-faceted company.
- Actionable: Including icons on Business Cards provides a modern, non-committal call-to-action for your customers to pursue.
Why is it important to include social media on Business Cards?
As of 2022, more than 59 percent of the world is using social media. This equates to over 4.7 billion people, with an average daily usage of two and a half hours. At 93.6 percent, nearly everyone who uses the Internet is now also on social media.
The most widely used platforms, including Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp and Instagram have a total of over 10 billion accounts combined. With new channels being established each year, the growth continues to be exponential. TikTok saw a 142 percent year-on-year growth in 2021 and now has over a billion users.
How to use social media icons on your Business Cards legally
Social media icons are each respective company’s registered trademark. Some important tips for the most common social media icons for Business Cards are:
- You can use the ‘F’ logo but not the Facebook wordmark.
- You must maintain the shape, colour and proportions of the icon.
- You need to keep sufficient clear space around the icon at a legible size.
- Don’t animate or fabricate physical objects in the form of the ‘F’ logo.
For more information on your Business Card with Facebook logo, you can click this link.
- You can change the Instagram icon to any solid colour as long as all other aspects of the design remain the same.
- Avoid making the Instagram profile the most distinctive or prominent feature.
- Keep the ‘I’ capitalised and in the same font size and style as the content surrounding it.
- Maintain the icon’s proportions, which should never be smaller than 29 x 29 pixels.
For more information on your Business Card Instagram logo, you can click this link.
- Only show the logo in Twitter blue or white. You can use black for certain exceptions but may need approval.
- Don’t alter, rotate or modify the logo.
- Don’t animate the logo by making it talk, chirp or fly.
- Use the most updated version of the logo possible.
- The minimum width of the social icon is 32px.
For more information on the Twitter logo for Business Cards, you can click this link.
- This logo should be replicated in blue, black or white only, depending on the colour of the backdrop it sits on, so it remains easy to see.
- For print, the minimum size of the logo is 0.25 in (6.35mm) or 21px on screen.
- Do not modify or distort the logo.
For more information on LinkedIn Business Card icon usage, you can click this link.
YouTube
- Give the logo clear space to buffer it from other images, text or graphics. This space must be greater than or equal to the size of the triangle in the icon.
- For print, the minimum height is 0.125 in (3.1mm).
- Don’t alter the design of the logo.
- Use either the full-colour logo or a monochrome logo.
- When the icon is full-colour, the triangle must always be white. When the icon is monochrome, the triangle is cut out so the background shows through.
For more information on the YouTube Business Card icon usage, you can click this link.
Please note: When using multiple social media icons together on Business Cards, it is important that they are all the same height, width and resolution. Each company requires a specific space around their icon to be left clear.
