If there are still a lot of websites that don’t have social media icons, there is a good chance you haven’t. If you haven’t, you’re missing out on a lot of opportunities. Because in fact, using these social media icons may increase the interaction between your visitors with the company on a variety of social media platforms.
We see these logos everywhere now that social media has become such an integral part of our daily lives—on everything from advertisements to business cards.
There are several things to keep in mind to get the most out of your social media presence. It is important to note that certain social media icons are still trademarked.
In addition, choosing the appropriate icons collection to complement each person’s or company’s style may be difficult — not to mention time-consuming.
In this piece, you’ll learn how to incorporate social media icons in your branding and marketing activities, as well as how you may lawfully do so.
Let’s get started now!
Benefits of Using Social Media Icons
Your clients will locate your business through social media more easily if you use social media icons. Add them to your site and online advertising. In addition to business cards and other printed materials, such as posters and invitation cards, many companies make use of them.
Having a social media presence may be as simple as displaying a logo on your printed marketing materials. It is common to put the appropriate social media username next to the symbol, making it easy for others to locate you. Digital logos are linked to your online profiles, making it easy for visitors to locate you simply by clicking on one of them.
For instance, it is possible to go to a company’s social media accounts by clicking on any following symbols on an e-commerce website.
Use social media icons for a clean and consistent look. People know precisely what occurs whenever they click on an icon because they are immediately identifiable. With no need to bother your visitors with annoying pop-ups asking them to subscribe to you, you’ll save yourself a lot of time.
How to Use Your Social Media Icons: Use Cases
Still unsure about how to use your social media icons properly? Here are some of the best use cases you can start with.
Include them on your official web page
Visitors to your website will appreciate it if you include social media icons. Not only will it make your website look more interactive, but having social media icons also will increase the engagement of your visitors with other websites or social media accounts that you may have. Also, it makes you look trustworthy and credible in your audience’s eyes!
Input them on newsletter, publications, and email
Including social media icons in the email signature will allow your email readers to interact with you in a variety of additional ways. As a brand representative, you may find this useful.
Additionally, you can also use social media icons to link to your brand’s social media profiles and in brand newsletters.
Use them in any advertising materials
Print collateral like business cards, advertisements, and brochures may all benefit from the inclusion of social media icons. When feasible, use icons instead of words to reduce the amount of text on the page and make the design more visually appealing.
As a result, you’ll have to include the link or handle that will take visitors to the social media presence in your printed documents.
Encourage share and subscribe using social media icons
Social share buttons may be more easily added to your content with the use of icons. To make it easier for your audience to share your material, each icon will have a symbol of the social networking platform where they may do so.
A few clicks are all it takes to share the material on social media instead of having to open up a new browser window and manually paste the content URL.
Increased exposure and a better content strategy may be achieved by making them more willing to spread the word.
You may consider adding social share buttons just at the conclusion of each post or on the navigation pane of your site.
Social Media Icons Cheatsheet
Below, we’re going to cover the cheatsheet for the nine most famous social media networks and how they use their icons in their branding.
Because Facebook Messenger and Facebook are separate applications, each has its own policies. According to Facebook, you cannot use any logo you see online unless straight from the Facebook resource pack.
Listed here are some of the general trademark rules:
- The Facebook Inc wordmark should not be used to advertise your Facebook page. You should only use the F logo.
- Shape, color, and proportions should be maintained.
- The logo should not be stretched, flipped, or bedecked.
- Make sure the F logo is visible by giving plenty of room around it.
- If Facebook’s official colors aren’t accessible, black and white will suffice.
Instagram suggests you use the “glyph” icon over the colorful app icon since it’s simpler and less obtrusive.
- Brand assets should only ever use the Instagram-approved icon sets; any other variants should never be used.
- As well as color, these logos are usually black and white.
- The glyph icon may be used to highlight your presence on Instagram.
- Instagram’s symbol, on the other hand, cannot be utilized in this way.
- The glyph icon must have a resolution of at least 29×29 pixels.
- Keep the glyph icon’s borders free of clutter.
- IGTV has its own glyph icon, so if you really want to show that you’re active there, you may do so.
- The logo’s color can be changed to any solid color, but no further changes can be made.
TikTok
- TikTok urges you to utilize black, white, as well as the company’s trademark blue/pink colors.
- Make sure the shadows around the primary logo are in the right proportions.
- Text “TikTok” should be separated from the logo symbol by a sufficient amount of whitespace.
- When the colors are unavailable, use a plain black or white monochromatic logo.
- If the brand’s blue color isn’t available, you can use black or white instead.
- White or any other light color is preferred for the backdrop.
- Please provide sufficient breathing room around the symbol on all sides.
- The backdrop container should be a curved square at all times.
- Do not alter the icon’s appearance or proportions in any way.
- There are occasions when all needed is the “in” icon and not the full “LinkedIn” icon.
- A solid black backdrop can be used to place the symbol if you are restricted by color restrictions.
- The icon’s smallest size is 21 pixels.
Youtube
When it comes to using the YouTube logo and mentioning the brand in a phrase, there are strict guidelines in place.
- According to YouTube, the symbol should have at least a one-pixel border around it. At least half the width of the YouTube listen button symbol should be left free.
- A screen icon should be no less than 24dp in height to be legible to users.
- In other words, don’t modify anything about the logo’s appearance.
- Please be aware that the triangular shape in the symbol always has a white color.
- Make sure the symbol is not tilted in any way.
- In order for the symbol to be utilized, it must be accompanied by a call to action (CTA).
- Colors other than red, black, and white are not permitted.
- The usage of special effects like shade or transparency is discouraged.
- The logo can be placed on a solid color backdrop, such as gray, black, or white.
The professional social networking site also has rigorous guidelines about the whitespace surrounding certain parts of its logo. Make sure you read the following rules before you start using them.
- All icons should be at least 32 pixels wide.
- You should always use the most recent version of the icon, as it may change over time.
- Never alter the logo’s proportions, aspect ratio, or any other feature of its design, and never use the bird emblem in a multi-colored or another non-approved color.
- Keep the Twitter bird symbol and don’t change that with any other creature because it’s more than simply a bird.
- As opposed to other social media icons, Twitter’s social media icon likes to be used in its original form and not in a rectangle or a ring. However, if you like, you may position it in a round, rectangle, or rectangle with rounded corners.
- Either Twitter blue or white should be the color of your symbol.
- For consistency, you may use a solid color as a background for the white symbol if desired.
- Don’t modify the bird logo’s orientation, since that would damage the logo’s meaning.
Snapchat
This logo, according to Snapchat, displays the brand’s actual essence and personality. Particularly simple, spontaneous, and a clean slate. According to Snapchat, its simplicity is what makes the ghost so alluring. So they don’t want you to colorize or animate the ghost until you have permission from them.
- There should be a black or white ghost emblem for Snapchat.
- It’s important to leave at least 150 percent of the logo’s width in free space.
- Use the basic ghost logo displayed just on right below for social networking.
- The Snapchat symbol should always be linked to a user’s Snapchat account.
- Do not make any changes to the logo’s design or appearance in any way, shape, size, color, or otherwise.
- There are at least 18 pixels in the icon’s width
- It is only appropriate to use the yellow-backed app symbol as an app icon and not as a social networking icon.
- The “P” on black, red, or white solid circles should be the basic colors or the Pinterest symbol.
- Pinterest icons should be accompanied by a call to action and a link to the user’s Pinterest profile.
- The size of the symbol should support the weight of the CTA wording and must not be highlighted individually.
- Icons are always preferred to wordmarks.
- There are black and white Pinterest symbols, but if you can, stick with the red one.
- In order to modify the icon’s shape, you would have to change the shape of the icon itself.
- Whatsapp’s standard icon is a greenish call-out bubble with a white outline, in the middle of which is a white telephone icon.
- WhatsApp’s green backdrop may be utilized with this icon.
- Black-and-white icons, which can be used if there are no other options, are the lone exception to this rule.
- The green bubble is neither a social media nor a sharing button, but merely a symbol for the WhatsApp mobile program.
Where to find icons for social media?
In general, every website offering vector graphics has a large number of free social networking icons for use on any number of different websites.
If you don’t have the time or resources to double-check each icon set against the brand rules, don’t buy from these stock picture providers! The stock site may be unaware of an issue until contacted by Twitter or Facebook for removal.
User-generated sites with custom social media icons may be found here:
Best Practices in Using Social Media Icons
Don’t customize it on your own
Because the logos are registered trademarks, you cannot make any modifications to them. For example, you could want to animate or add components to the images after being rotated or changed color. Yes, even if your website’s color scheme clashes with the logo’s primary hues.
Find strategic locations
If you want your social media icons to have the intended effect, make sure they are clearly displayed. However, your brand should not be overshadowed by them either.
Maintain the quality and size
All of your icons should have the same size in height, width, and resolution if you’re using more than one. Each organization has its own guidelines for how much space it needs between its logo and other features.
There are different laws and restrictions for utilizing brand symbols on each social media platform. Although we’ve addressed the essentials here, be sure to look into the details on each network’s information page for further information. As you move ahead, the essential rule would be to prevent modifying the symbols and keep up with the unique requirements of each site.
Remember to put everything you’ve learned here into practice on your own site once you’ve read it.
