Social media rules the world these days and any marketing experience is incomplete without social platforms. That’s why it is recommended that we be active on platforms such as Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. So it is necessary to have specific social media icons to use when marketing.
There are millions of websites all over the huge world of internet, and almost all of them have contact icons which let visitors find a way to contact the site admin for cooperation to asking questions, and we all know that in this modern era of digital life, social media plays a very important role in getting in touch with the people all around the world, so it is clear that one’s social media profiles are the ways to contact them.
That’s why when we are looking for contact icons on a website for a specific purpose, our eyes are actually looking for social media icons to help redirect us to their accounts so we can contact them.
What are social media icons, and why they are important?
Social media icons are the small versions of social media logos that are used in websites, brochures, business cards, and much more, as contact ways.If you own a website, or you are responsible for managing a website, it is necessary to choose cool blog icons for the site in order to keep it organized and make it easy for others to contact you.
Every business, product, and overall, every website has its own style or theme that you need to pay attention to while choosing your social media icon pack. The logos should fit the website in size and shape to make it look more organized and well-designed.
How should we use social media icons for marketing materials?
As I mentioned above, we should never underestimate the importance of using social media icons on every platform we are marketing our company or business. You might have produced an advertising video which is shown on different channels of TV, or you have just decided to stick to social media marketing but either way, including contact icons, is necessary if you want people to be able to get back to you or follow your social media profiles. Regarding the platform, we add social media logos to, their position and style might need to differ to fit the marketing material.
What are the different types of social media icons?
It is a wrong belief that social media logos should only be used on websites. If you want more followers, a company’s social media channels, and a more successful marketing campaign, contact icons should have a place at every single one of your marketing materials.
- Blog Icons
The most common platform we all have seen social media icons are surely the websites. A website owner needs to make it available to every audience to feel free and contact them, or to direct them to their social profiles.
If social media icons are placed in blogs, they are also known as Blog icons. Blog icons are usually placed either in the header or the footer, but we have seen in so many sites that their social media icons are located at the sides of the website or they even move up and down as you scroll.
- Social media icons on Emails and newsletters
It would be very useful to add contact icons in your emails or newsletters. This way, you are giving the audience more ways to contact you other than just replying to the email or read and ignore it.If you want to use social media icons in emails and newsletters, it is better to footnote them or add them at the end of your content, so that you can first follow the specific aim of the email which can, for example, be promoting a business or product, and then provide more ways for the audience to keep track of you by adding cool icons to end the email.
- Social media icons on other marketing materials
If someone actually aims to run a marketing campaign, he/she will not stick to only one marketing platform and uses all the resources for marketing their business. Other marketing materials such as brochures, print ads, or business cards, TV, and video content should also have your social media icons on them.
Note: Keep in mind that on material such as cards, papers, and brochures, you cannot add a contact icon or a link, so you have to write down the proper link to your social media profiled
Where to find the best social media icon pack?
As mentioned earlier on the blog, we should choose our social media logos based on the niche of our company and the style of the website. Surely, free social media icons are much more popular. I mean, who would want to pay for things that can be found free?
There are a lot of sites offering cool social media icon pack that suit different tastes and subjects, but there are three of such sites that have the best variety of free social media icons and countless wonderful icon styles to choose from. You just need to go through one of these sites and I bet you’ll find the desired social media icon pack you want.
1. Flaticon
Flaticon is my number one source for free social media icons on any of my marketing materials. It has a very wide variety of different blog icons to choose from, and you just have to head to the search bar and decide what type of icons you wish to choose.
The social media category of icons on Flacticon gives you unlimited choices with different shapes and sizes. Decide which icon pack gets your attention more and then click on it to customize its shape, size, and color. The icons come in different download formats as you can see in the screenshot below.
2. Iconfinder
Another great source for downloading free social media icons is definably the famous Iconfinder website. Find and download all popular social media icons in vector format. This page features original icons of social networks, such as Facebook icon, Instagram icon, Twitter icon, and more.
3. FreepikFreepik is not only a mere website to download a social media icon pack, but also it is a graphic resource, including lots of wonderful pictures and banners of any subject. You can also use it to find free icon blogs for any website. Just type “social media” in its search box and browse the tons of icon packs that would appear.
How to add social media icons to websites?
Now that you know where to find the social media icon pack which suits your marketing material the best, I think the next step would be to learn how to add these icons to websites. This step requires you to know at least basic knowledge of HTML coding or working with WordPress.
The first step in adding blog icons is to browse one of the sites I mentioned and select the social media icon pack that captures your attention the most and download them to computer.
From here, the process needs professional coding since you also need to add the right code for each different social network separately. Some sites that provide an ultimate tutorial on how to add social media icons to websites are as below:
Pro Tips for adding social media icons
Although it is very easy to browse sites like Iconfinder to search for contact icons for any of your marketing materials, keep in mind that there are actually some things and guidelines you need to know before adding social media icons to your website.
- Consider the Copyright
Yes, a social media icon pack also has copyright, and if we violate the term of uses or download them from unreliable sources, we are in trouble. So keep in mind to never violate the Copyright terms of the icon pack you choose.
- Don’t overdo it
I understand that to have better marketing experience, we need to be active on almost every social media platform out there, but it is not necessary to add all of them to as contact icons to your marketing materials.There sure are between three to five platforms you mostly use and have more credit on, so go on with attaching them and avoid sharing all your social networks.
- Keep the icons uniform
It would look very awkward if one of the social media icons have different shape or size than the others, or for example imagine a website’s contract icons being bigger than the trademark or other logos, these are really awkward mistakes to do. So avoid doing them and use the icons in a similar shape, size, and style.
- Prioritize the icons
Regarding what your business or website is about, the icons can be prioritized. Put the icon of the social media platform you mostly use and is more important, in the first place, and order the rest after that.
- Use the updates logos
Most of the social media logos have changed from time to time, for example, Instagram. Be sure to use the up to date logo of each platform to avoid audiences from thinking you are not keeping up with the latest updates.
Conclusion
You now know where to find free social media icons, why using them on any marketing material is always recommended, so get down to business and select your preferred contact icons from one of the most reliable sites which provide icon packs, and add them to your website or other stuff, in order to get more traffic and attention to both your website and the social media channels.
Source: Guide to adding Social media icons on marketing materials