How to Use Social Media Icons on Business Cards

Traditionally, this role would have been fulfilled by your website. However, while a website is still a great place to send your customers, social networks might offer a more attractive, effortless place to send them.

This article offers insight on the tools to involve social media in your business card design in innovative and powerful ways.

What are social media icons?

Social media icons are the brand logos of each platform. By including them on your Business Card, you’re advertising your presence on these platforms to your customers.

Social media icons:

• Attract customers
• Build brand loyalty
• Expand your potential consumer base
• Reduce marketing costs (it’s free!)
• Increase revenue

If you decide to put them on your business cards, add the social media icons you’re most engaged with or that your customers will find most helpful.

For example, if you’re a visual business, Instagram is the best platform for you to show off your business to customers. If you offer a more educative, informational service, then Twitter or Facebook could be better platforms for you to broadcast this on.

Ultimately, the ball is in your court. If you only want to push one social media platform in particular, then only include one icon on your business card.

When you use an icon on your print, it’s important that you leave your platform-specific tag so readers will know what to search to find you.

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 maximize growth. Previously, your website would’ve been the primary place to send your customers next. While you should always include your website address, some customers will feel more inclined to check out your social media than your traditional contact information.

After all, inviting online engagement can present less of a barrier to a significant segment of your audience. A vast majority of your customers are already on them.

Therefore, enquiring about your business through socials requires minimal effort on their part. Writing to your email address would require switching platforms and composing a more thought-out response. Ringing your phone number would require a deeper understanding of what they want from your brand, rather than a simple social media enquiry.

Including social media icons on your Business Cards makes them:

• Memorable
• Relevant
• Trustworthy
• Actionable

Memorable

Social media icons are instantly recognized by most. They’re used by billions and provide an eye-catching feature to your design. By including these icons, customers are more likely to remember that you’re on a platform the next time they need a service you provide. To some, your social tags will be more memorable than your website address.

Relevant

A vast majority of your customers are on social media. Therefore, leaving your platform names on a business card will require the least amount of effort from them possible. This is a simple step to show your customers that you’re an interactive, forward-thinking business that understands the importance of keeping them engaged. Social media are modern platforms where you can:

• Interact with customers easier
• Build online networks
• Promote and sell your work

Trustworthy

By providing your customers additional accounts to check out, you’re showing them that your business is a professional, multi-faceted company. Allowing people to cross-reference your work and ensure that you’re not a scammer will put them at ease. When customers receive your business card, providing a social media account gives them something to check out instantly. It’s a great way for your customers to see the unique content you provide, and discover additional information, with as little commitment on their part as possible.

Actionable

Including icons on your business cards provides a modern, non-committal call-to-action for your customers to pursue. Giving them your social media accounts provides a less-pressurized environment to investigate your business than asking them to call you on your mobile or request a quote.

Why is it important to include social media on business cards?

As of 2022, more than 59% 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%, 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% 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. Printing a distorted or corrupted version of that logo is unlikely to land you in jail. However, following each brand’s style guidelines is a good idea. As well as keeping in their good books, you’ll appear more professional and achieve greater brand recognition for the icon.

Here are some important tips for the most common social media icons for business cards, with a link for further information below each section.

Facebook

• 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 adding a Facebook logo to your business card, you can click this link.

Instagram

• 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’ capitalized 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 adding an Instagram logo to your business card, you can click this link.

Twitter

• 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 adding a Twitter logo to your business card, you can click this link.

LinkedIn

• 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 LinkedIn 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  YouTube business card icon usage, you can click this link.

Please note: When you’re using multiple social media icons together on your business cards, it’s important that they’re all the same height, width and resolution. As stated earlier, each company requires a specific space around their icon to be left clear.

QR code business cards for social media

It’s commonplace for marketing messages to tell their customers to ‘Follow us on..’. Why not give your customers an effortless route to your social profile pages by including a QR code on your business cards? It’s immediate, convenient and avoids any mistakes that can happen when you make them manually search for you.

You’ve now got the tools and knowledge to understand the importance of including social media icons on your business cards. Our mission wouldn’t be complete if we didn’t offer some support on how to start designing on your own.

To learn more about designing your own business card, check out:

• Business Card Templates
• Business Card Designs
• Business Card Size Guide