Some of you may be wondering: is it a good idea to have my beautifully designed, refined business card, filled to the brim with other company’s icons? In the end, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest, are all well-established social media brands that are equally eager to be advertised.
But the question here is, should you do it as if they were a sector of your company? Let us analyze the situation and get to know more about the necessity, or lack of, presenting social media icons on your business card.
Reasons to use custom social media icons on business cards
As with anything else, there are some pros and cons when it comes to placing social media icons on your company’s business card. Of course, social media is no longer an unfamiliar concept to people, and these icons are well-known by almost anyone.
1) The prominence of social media in today’s society
Social media has become a worldwide phenomenon, with an estimated 2.65 billion users by 2018. Businesses that have leveraged these platforms have become increasingly powerful as these channels allow for their brand messages to be transmitted to literally every corner of the world. Today, you will find that most businesses have an existing account on either Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, or even Youtube.
Especially when it comes to the younger generations, a life without social media has never existed. They were born with its prominence and are considered to be the world’s digital natives. Hence, these are the people who will know all the social media icons by heart. If you were to design your business card with one of these social media icons included, younger consumers could begin to want to familiarize themselves and connect with you more!
2) Gaining awareness and engagement in the online world
Another reason why you should include social media icons on your business card is to spread your online presence and gain awareness in the social media world. This can result in an increase in new clients as well as a more diverse group of consumers that you will get to attract. Compared to traditional channels, it can be agreed that social media provides you with much more possibilities for communication and developing a customer network.
The main reason why social media is so important for your business is due to its ability to increase your customer engagement. Using Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and other platforms allow you to easily interact with your audiences. Therefore, social media has become fundamental for many brands to build and maintain meaningful relationships with their target customers.
But what does a business card have anything to do with this? It’s simple. Adding your social media handles to your business card will improve the likelihood of your company expanding its online network, and with this comes many other benefits and opportunities for your business.
3) Becoming a meaningful part of your customer’s life
Your brand will become widely recognized if it’s active and present on social media. Therefore, it’s hard to imagine why you wouldn’t want to be among one of these channels. While inbound traffic may continue to change through time, social media is here to stay.
This gives us yet another great reason why brands should have their social media handles mentioned on their business cards. Everyone uses Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube, to name a few. Nowadays, people are increasingly becoming more and more engaged with brands through these platforms which gives companies the perfect opportunity to reach out to their customers.
To become successful in today’s business landscape, it’s not only vital that your company has an existing social media presence. You need to also understand how you can leverage each platform in order to increase customer engagement and convert this into sales. More importantly, brands need to figure out how they can ultimately become a valuable part of their customer’s daily life online.
However, when creating social media icons, you want to make sure that you are not reusing the same exact icons as everyone else. Otherwise, business card designs will just end up looking all the same and that is no fun for your consumers.
To differentiate yourself, there are many ways in which you can customize your social media icons. With just a few tweaks to the shape, size, color, and positioning of your social media icons, you can make your business card stand out from others.
For example, you can either choose a colored or black and white icon, or a squared or circular icon. Without turning the social media icons into something that is completely new or unrecognizable, there will be various designs possibilities for you to explore.
Where to find social media images for business cards
Putting social media icons on your business card will guide your customers to an informational display of your company. Without knowing much about your brand, your social media handles will allow for them to easily search you up. Simultaneously, these icons will play a role in inviting your customers to personally connect with you on multiple platforms.
If you are considering including your social media handles on your business card, there are some guidelines that you must follow. Luckily, these guidelines are very easy to follow!
When including social media icons on your business cards, you should always keep in mind that you should not play around with the logos too much. While you can definitely desaturate it or only include its outline, do not try to strip it away from its original look. Do not rotate the logo, change its main color, or add any extra designs to it. Otherwise, these social media logos could end up becoming unrecognizable to your customers.
Below here are some examples of what you should not do in the case of the Twitter logo:
While here are some examples of things you could do:
The key to adding social media icons is having a good knowledge of spacing, colors, size, as well as the main guidelines. If you’re wondering where you can find the instructions on how you can place these social media logos on your business card design, be sure to also check out the chosen social media brand’s site for specific rules.
Although these brands do make it all easier for you by providing you with all the information regarding legal conditions, you must also remember that at the end of the day, these social media logos are all registered trademarks of their companies. So, be sure to abide by their rules!
Examples of business cards with social media icons
If you’re in need of some design inspiration of how you can include social media icons on your business cards, we totally got you! Check out some of the great examples we’ve provided below. All of these companies have used and added social media icons to their business cards in their own unique ways, which helps illustrate the many design options you can go about with this.
However, be sure to not copy them! Be as original and creative as you can. After all, your business card still must be highly representative of your brand. Copy another company’s business card design is not going to help you stand out.
1) Freelance business card
This business card is great if you’re a freelancer looking to promote your individual social media channels as a point of contact. While it may look like this business card belongs to someone who actually works at Facebook, since the logo is its main cover, it is actually one that can be used by a graphic designer who is aiming to share his Facebook profile with his customers.
This way, his customers can head over to his Facebook profile to check out many of his works. Therefore, it is a smart way for freelancers to showcase their portfolio to their customers while also gaining more exposure online.
2) Textured business card
The second example of the use of social media icons on your business card not only looks acceptable, but it’s also really good! Everyone would be proud of a business card like this! It’s simple yet stunning as there is some texture being added to the prints of the social media icons. Interesting how something so minor can increase the appeal of the entire business card by a whole lot!
3) Playful business card
Here is an example of a more modern and colorful business card. Actually, this business card perfectly suits the tastes of the younger generations. But in all honesty, even though it seems less formal and professional compared to the other business cards, its playfulness is what makes it stand out. Anyone who receives this business card, no matter what age, could easily be impressed and ready to check out what’s more out there from this brand via their social media channels.
4) Casual and classy business card
Last but not least – the casual and classy business card designs. They’re simple yet aesthetically satisfying. Using just black and white instead of the usual colored logos, there is an added touch of modernity as well as professionalism to the social media icons. This goes to show that you don’t always have to stick to the colors of the main logo designs of these social media channels. If you like, you can always have it in basic black and white or have just the outline of these logos.
Today, business cards remain an effective way to reach out to your target customers. As you can physically give it to them yourself, it adds a sense of personal touch to it. This is great when you are trying to build and maintain a positive relationship with your customers, whether as a company or as a freelancer.
Business cards are an important marketing tool, and for this reason, you must give it the same amount of attention you would with the rest of your brand’s visuals. Create the perfect design and remember to include your social media handles to boost your engagement on these platforms.
If you’re in need of help with designing a unique and stunning business card, feel free to contact us here. At DesignBro, we have a team of experienced designers who are able to deliver top-quality creative solutions for your brand with our services.
Besides having grown up in the design Industry, Christiaan has advised some of the world’s largest companies on their branding & packaging designs. Has been the resident judge for design awards, and has spoken at numerous global design & marketing events. Christiaan founded the London office of the award-winning Cartils agency, and has founded the DesignBro.com platform.
