A “Legal-Approved” Free Collection of Social Media Icons

When looking to promote your social media presence, you want to include logos for each outlet, but you don’t want to be on the receiving end of legal issues with Facebook or Instagram. So we’ve done the legwork for you and compiled the logos each social media outlet wants you to use along with the rules for each. If you had a legal department, their ‘approved’ rubber stamp would be inked up and ready!

Facebook

Brand Resources – https://en.facebookbrand.com/facebookapp/

Use the “f” logo to promote your business’s presence on Facebook.
The color of the icon can either be facebook blue or white.
Include a call to action and link with the logo.
When using along with other icons, ensure they are all equal in size with adequate space in between each and maintain the shape and proportions of the “f” logo.
Don’t change the logo in any way.
Don’t make the logo the most prominent feature of your piece.

Instagram

Icon (and instructions) – https://en.instagram-brand.com/assets/icons

Use the Instagram glyph (or outline) in black or white (though you can place on a pink background when showing with other social media icons in their brand colors).
Use the logo with a call to action unless including in a lineup with other social media icons.
The glyph should be surrounded with clear space – specifically 50% of the glyph’s size – on all sides.
Make the glyph no smaller than 29×29 pixels.

Twitter

Brand Resources – https://about.twitter.com/en_us/company/brand-resources.html

While Twitter prefers you use their icon free of any container, they provide versions with the icon enclosed in a square, a square with rounded corners, and a circle.
When pairing the logo with an account name or hashtag, scale the text to 100% of the logo’s height.
Only use the logo in Twitter blue or white.
Don’t change the logo in any way.
Don’t surround the logo with other creatures or accessories.
The empty space around the logo should be at least 150% of the logo’s width.
Make sure the logo is at least 32 pixels wide.

YouTube

Brand Resources – https://www.youtube.com/about/brand-resources/#logos-icons-colors

Surround the icon with free space of at least 50% of the icon’s width.
The icon should be a minimum of 24dp in height (digitally) and .125 in (printed).
Don’t change the logo in any way.
Only use the icon in your social media assets when linked to a YouTube channel.

Snapchat

Snap Kit Design Guidelines – https://docs.snapchat.com/docs/design-guidelines/

Use the Snapchat app icon (shown above) along with other apps. (Otherwise, use the Ghost logo.)
The icon should be a minimum of 18 px (digitally) and .25 in (printed).
The empty space around the logo should be at least 150% of the logo’s size.
Don’t change the logo in any way.

Brand Guidelines/Downloads – https://brand.linkedin.com/downloads

Only use the logo in LinkedIn blue, all white, or all black.
Make sure adequate space surrounds the logo.
Don’t change the logo in any way.
The “in” should be a minimum of 32 px (digitally) and .25 in (printed). The ® symbol should be clearly visible.

Brand Guidelines – https://business.pinterest.com/en/pinterest-brand-guidelines

Use the Pinterest badge (above) and not the wordmark.
Always include a call to action and your Pinterest URL with the logo.
The logo height should be proportionate to the call to action text.

TikTok

Brand Guidelines – https://tiktokbrandbook.com/d/HhXfjVK1Poj9/legal

TikTok’s logo can only be used with prior written permission.
Use TikTok’s name in text ONLY to refer to their platform or services
You can say things like “uploaded on TikTok” or “follow us on TikTok”
Don’t include a space between “Tik” and “Tok”.
Both Ts in TikTok are upper case, and all other letters should be lower case.

We hope this guide simplifies the use of social media logos for you. However, please keep in mind that this collection does not replace the full guidelines provided by each social media outlet, and those should be reviewed in full as well.

If you have any questions or comments, we’d love to hear from you! Post in the comments section below.

Creating a ‘Follow Us on Social Media’ Sign in Microsoft Word

You’ve created your social media pages to reinforce and promote your brand, and you regularly dedicate your time to adding content. Now, you want to be sure you’re taking every opportunity to properly promote your social media presence. If your small business has a physical location (office, retail store, etc.), hanging a sign in a high-traffic area is a great option and relatively quick and easy.

I’ll show you the steps to create such sign in Microsoft Word.

1. Open Word, create a new blank document, and insert a rectangle. (When your cursor turns into a plus sign, you’re able to draw your shape.

By default, mine is blue. Right click the rectangle and select More Layout Options.

Set the properties to . . .

Size: 10” in Height and 8” in Width
Text Wrapping: Behind Text
Position:
- Horizontal – Absolute Position of .25” ‘to the right of’: Page
- Vertical – Absolute Position of .5” ‘to the right of’: Page

Set the Fill to No Fill and the Line to a Solid Line, Black Color, and .5 pt Width, choosing the Dash Type selection shown below.

2. Click inside the rectangle and type “Follow Us on Social Media”. Set the font to one or more choices that work as your heading and size to appropriately fill the space. Set the Alignment to Centered. I went with the font Candelion Regular in all lowercase at size 160 for “follow us” and (on the next line) Calibri in all caps at size 25 and added a space between each letter.

3. Next, decide which review platforms you would like to feature. We are currently active on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Pinterest and will be highlighting those. Then, go to Google to find logos. Most social media outlets will have a corporate page that makes their logo available to the public along with instructions for proper usage. For example, Facebook has a Brand Resources page easily found when searching “facebook logo” on Google.

As you find the appropriate source for each social media outlet, save the logos to your desktop.

4. Press enter within your document to advance to the next line space and then insert each of your saved logos (from the menu at top, press the Insert tab, and choose Picture) in the order you want them to appear on your sign.

Inserting each of mine took me to the bottom of a second page. So, the first step in adjusting sizing is to crop any excess space from the logos. (As you can see above, the outline of the Pinterest image is directly around the icon, so no need to crop that one.) That’s not the case for LinkedIn . . .

To crop, click Picture Tools (at the very top of the screen), click the Crop icon (at top right), drag the outer edges of the box tight around the logo, and press enter. Once all the logos are cropped as needed, try to match their size to about and 1.4” in height. (This will ensure you have adequate room for text.) To do so, click Picture Tools again and enter a height at top right.

Repeat for the other icons.

5. Click in the space after your first icon, press enter to add a line space, and type your profile name/URL for that platform; repeat for your subsequent logos. This process once again took me onto a second page.

Therefore, decrease the font size as needed. I went with size 20.

And then adjust the spacing a little for each line of text (so you have additional room between each social media outlet).

And you’re done!

6. Save your file, print, cut (on the dotted line, which is 8×10”), and frame!

A Note About Fonts and Colors:
While the instructions described above will achieve the simple and modern design pictured, you can (and should) customize the look for your business. If you’ve been brand building from the start, you already have a Style Guide in place, and everything you create for your business should reflect the guidelines you’ve set for your logo usage, fonts, and colors. If you’re new to branding, be sure to review our story on The Role of a Brand Style Guide.

Happy designing!

How to Create a Facebook Page for Your Business

Your first step to your business’s social media presence on facebook is quick and easy. In the five steps below, you’ll see how to create a page for your business.

1. Log in to your personal account on facebook. Go to Create > Page.

Select Business or Brand when asked to choose a category.

2. You’ll then be prompted to input an address, or you can click “Don’t show my address. Only show that this business is in the City, State region.”

3. Next, you’ll need to add a profile photo. You’ll want to use one that can be squared, the corners rounded/cropped, and at least 170 x 170 pixels in size (which is pretty small). We would ideally like to use our logo, but it’s not one that would work well in facebook’s profile frame:

If uploaded as is (as I did above), portions would be cropped. If I added white space to the top and bottom so the sides wouldn’t be cropped, the logo would be very hard to see when displayed at 170 x 170 pixels and smaller. As a result, I went with an icon version of our logo, created for purposes such as these. White space has been added all around to accommodate the round frame.

If your logo doesn’t work for your profile picture or you’d prefer to use a photo of yourself or some other image representative of your business, just be sure to regularly include your logo in your posts (preferably as an overlay on pictures related to the post).

4. Next up is your cover photo, which displays at 820 pixels wide x 312 pixels tall on computers and 640 pixels wide x 360 pixels tall on smartphones. The minimum size is 400 pixels wide x 150 pixels tall. Since the dimensions of your cover photo will vary somewhat in different environments, a simple landscape photo is your surest best – as opposed to including your logo or other text. (If you do go the route of including your logo or other text, be sure to include lots of white space, so the text does not get cropped regardless of the environment.)

A Quick Note About Graphics Software: If you’re not quite sure how to go about creating a cover photo that includes text or how to add white space to your logo, you may want to check out Inkscape (https://inkscape.org/), which is a free graphics editor that also makes a number of tutorials available: https://inkscape.org/learn/tutorials/.

For our facebook cover, I just used the main image included on our home page for continuity purposes.

You can “drag to reposition” if desired.

5. Finally, you’ll be asked whether you want to “invite friends to like your page,” which is recommended since pages with 10 or more likes get more engagement. If you want to wait until you’ve been regularly posting for some time before inviting a lot of people, you can start off with a small group of your close family and friends until you get better established.

And you are done! You have a facebook page for your business. Unfortunately, that was the easy part. The challenge is creating a regular posting schedule and sticking to that plan. How often . . . ? A number of sources cite one facebook post per day as optimal. If you can commit to that, great. If you feel like twice a day is better for you, just pay attention to your engagement. If those posts aren’t getting sufficient attention, facebook may decrease your visibility and put your posts into a “spamming” category. If you’re like us, once a week is a much more reasonable goal. Do what works for you and your business, experimenting a little to find your optimal posting schedule.

Good luck! Stay tuned for more posts about facebook. If you have any questions, feel free to leave a reply below.

Get Your Business Started on Pinterest

KNOW YOUR TARGET

My number one first suggestion to an individual looking to promote their business on any social media platform is to get to know your target. If you’re looking to create a facebook business account and reflections of your first facebook profile picture trigger a ‘wow, look how young I was’ reaction, you can probably safely cross this item off the to-do list. If you’ve got a sad, faceless, white silhouette or no account at all, your first step is to dive — head first — into the unknown realm and fully immerse yourself. The definition for full immersion (or your threshold for comfort in the new environment) will vary by person, but I would recommend you spend AT LEAST a few hours over the course of a week or so bravely exploring. While a great supplement, research cannot compare to real-life experience.

So I’m going to assume you have an individual account on Pinterest, and you know that a ‘pin’ is an image most often representing linked content, a ‘board’ is a stored collection of like pins, and the Pinterest site or app is often used as a visual search engine.

WHO ELSE IS ON PINTEREST?

A closer look at Pinterest’s demographics (below) shows a more female tilt (though that tilt decreases in intensity every year) with other lesser represented demographics including individuals 65+ and people with income less than $30k.

WHY ARE THESE FOLKS ON PINTEREST?

The big topics traditionally associated with the platform are food and beauty/style. If your business is focused on one of these categories, Pinterest is the perfect match for you.

The impetus for me writing this particular article is that we are currently looking to promote our blog, Brand Building for Small Business, on Pinterest. Since we’re not a sure-thing kind of fit for this outlet, I went looking to confirm my personal impression that DIY business topics do perform well. Pinterest’s top 100 trends for 2019 fall into ten categories:

I hope your business is faring well here, because ours it still on the fence. Actually, we may not have even approached the fence yet. The top ten trends within each category are available on Pinterest’s web site. Upon drilling down, I see we have some potential in the Hobbies and Interests category: the first item listed is, “Do the hustle: People are turning their passions into profits—from canning to DJing to online tutoring. (Searches for side hustles at home +690%).” Apparently, lots of small businesses are blooming, and these at-home entrepreneurs are turning to Pinterest. I’m optimistic that your review of the top trends was equally encouraging. This social media platform really has evolved significantly over the years, and I believe a large percentage of businesses can find a comfortable home in today’s Pinterest.

MAKE YOUR BUSINESS PINTERESTING (sorry, just had to . . . )

1. Create Your Business Account

You can either add your business profile to your personal one (by clicking in the top right corner, then “Add a free business profile,” and completing the following prompts) or you can create a profile independent of your personal account (log out of your personal account, go to pinterest.com/business/create/, fill in your email and password, click “Create account,” and answer the questions that follow).

In that process, you’ll be asked whether you would like to add the Pinterest save button to your browser. While certainly not a necessity, the button can ease your future pinning.

2. Edit Your Profile

Click the pen to the right of your business name for your business account settings. Your profile photo should be consistent with your brand, square, and at least 600 x 600 pixels. In the About section, you have 160 characters to be as descriptive as possible while including keywords and phrases that your target audience might search.

3. Create Your Boards

Next, you’ll want to decide how to structure your account. If you’re a photographer, you might want to have boards for each type of photography you do (weddings, babies, etc.). If you own a salon, you could create a board for each type of service you provide. As a blog for small business branding, I’m going to create a board for each brand component we focus on (logo design, style guides, direct mail, etc.).

To begin, you’ll need to switch from your Business hub to your Profile.

From your profile page, select boards, and click the plus sign.

You’ll again want to be as descriptive as possible with your board names while keeping keywords in mind and limiting your character count to only 20.

Return to the boards page, hover over the name of your new board, and click the pencil icon to enter more details. Enter a description, choose an appropriate category, and save your board.

Repeat this process for as many boards as you’d like.

4. Get Pinning

Next, you’ll want to add some pins to your boards, which should include a mix of your products and services, related content that is new to Pinterest, and related content already on Pinterest.

The easiest route of course is simply repinning, but you usually need new content (in addition to your products and services) to make your board worth following, though exceptions certainly exist.

If you chose to download the Pinterest save button to your browser when creating your account, you can simply hover over pictures you’d like to pin, and the Pinterest save button will appear at the top left of the picture, as you can see below on our home page. While a great neutral image, nothing specific is communicated and would therefore be largely useless as a pin. You want to use an image that is visually appealing and clearly conveys the viewer’s destination if he or she were to click. Your logo is a nice addition but not a necessity.

Since no such image existed for my article on logo design, I needed to create one. The image specs put out by Pinterest are:

File type: PNG or JPEG
Max file size: 32 MB
Aspect ratio: 2:3 or 1000 x 1500 pixels. Pins with an aspect ratio that’s greater than 2:3 might be cropped in people’s feeds.

So you want a high-quality, portrait image that includes a text overlay IF the picture isn’t self-explanatory. (If photo editing isn’t one of your talents, check out 7 of the Best Mobile Apps to Add Text to Your Photos at TechMadeEasier.)

Once you’ve got your image and are ready to add your new pin, click on your applicable board, and click the plus sign at top left to “Create Pin”.

Upload your picture, add your title, explain your content, and include a destination link. (Once again, be mindful of keywords people might search to find content like yours.)

Quick Note About Rich Pins:
With a business account on Pinterest, you have the ability to add greater depth to your pins for products, recipes, articles, and aps:
– Product pins include real-time pricing, availability, and purchase information.
– Recipe pins display ingredients, cooking times, and serving sizes.
– Article pins show a headline, the author, and a story description.
– Ap pins include an install button.
While these additions can be very helpful, rich pins do require some initial groundwork. They function by displaying metadata associated with your content that’s included within the HTML of your website. For information on setup, see Pinterest’s Developers’ Overview on Rich Pins.

YOUR PINTEREST PLAN GOING FORWARD

Pinterest recommends you pin at least once per day during peak times (i.e., evenings and weekends). You can also schedule pins if you’d prefer to get a large amount ready all at once. To do so, just select “Publish at a later date” when creating your pins. You can schedule as many as 30 pins up to two weeks in advance.

Happy pinning! If you have any questions, leave a reply below.

The Simplest Social Media Strategy

JUST DO IT . . .

To shamelessly borrow Nike’s slogan, forward movement is the best route for small businessowners looking to broaden their marketing and branding efforts into social media. If you’re a large company with a department or firm devoted to your marketing and branding, you likely have a person or staff of people responsible for social media, and they can analyze demographics, develop goals, create a content inventory, and schedule posts. If that’s a feasible undertaking for your business, this web site probably isn’t for you. Our target is the small businessowner, who is looking to embrace social media while simultaneously doing most everything else . . . which could include staffing, management, finances, strategic planning, daily operations, sales, and customer service as well as marketing and branding. Dedicating a huge amount of time and financial investment to social media simply isn’t feasible and is frankly unnecessary in order to be successful.

JUST DO WHAT?

So how do you move forward into this new corporate endeavor? Focus on what you know. For example, if you don’t have a personal twitter account and aren’t really sure what or why one would tweet, that’s probably not the best place for you to start.

We’ve recently decided now is the time to start promoting our blog content on social media. Personally, I currently frequent Facebook and Pinterest. Bob, the other voice of Brand Building for Small Business, frequents Facebook. (Frequent is actually probably an overstatement, but he occasionally visits Facebook.) Since we have real experience with these platforms, we have a pretty good idea of who else is using them without any research. However, a quick glance at the following chart, and we can solidify our understanding of the demographics of the most popular social media platforms.

Facebook and Pinterest’s demographics sufficiently align with our target audience. We also know from experience that our content would be an appropriate fit. . . .

“CONTENT IS KING”

What can you, on behalf of your business, contribute to social media (with the expectation that a meaningful contribution yields dividends for your business)?

At the risk of sounding repetitive . . . focus on what you know. You are likely an expert in your field. You may have managed to generate an income selling your products or services. You possibly generate revenue that supports a small staff of people. Or maybe you just started out and are hopeful about the profits to come. Regardless, you likely have a wealth of focused knowledge.

You also no doubt have a personality. I’m sure you’ve got a pretty great one at that. You may be clever, witty, cultured, or sarcastic. You may be optimistic, dark, curious, or creative. You have a voice. Hopefully, that voice is reflected in your brand, and you can express yourself and your brand on social media, resonating authenticity with your audience.

A FEW GREAT EXAMPLES . . .

Pop-Tarts

The popular brand of toaster pastries Pop-Tarts has a Twitter account bursting with personality. . . .

Pop-Tarts’ parent company, Kellogg’s, has a more conservative brand and voice. They have approximately 98,000 Twitter followers while Pop-Tarts has 205,000. With a 280 character limit (up from 140 a couple years ago), a little bit of creativity goes a long way.

Wayfair

A provider of furniture and home goods, Wayfair utilizes the visual nature of their business on a platform optimal for visuals. Wayfair has approximately 1.3 million followers on Instagram, and they most often post pictures of their products with simple captions that engage, entertain, or educate. Many posts will lead you to the link in their bio, which ultimately leads you to shop the pictured items on their web site.

Mashable

Digital media website Mashable uses Pinterest as an outlet to reinforce brand awareness and drive traffic to their web site. They have 58 boards, ranging in topic from “3D Printing Creations” to “WTF” . . .

Mashable has 10 million+ monthly viewers on Pinterest.

A JOURNEY WITHOUT A MAP

Let’s say you glean some inspiration from these social media giants, and you create accounts for your business on the platforms you frequent; you begin regularly posting content – at least once per week – that is optimal for that platform (based on your personal experience), your products or services, and your unique brand; you promote your social media presence as part of your brand on all advertisements, correspondence, etc.; and little by little customers AND potential customers start following you. Fantastic! What now?

According to Comm100, some commons social media goals are to:

Connect with Customers
Increase Brand Awareness
Drive Traffic to Your Website (directly from social media and indirectly by enhanced search engine results)
Generate Sales and Leads
Boost Brand Engagement
Increase In-Person Sales
Build a Community
Improve Customer Service

While one or two items on this list may be more important to you than others, all of the goals are worthwhile in some respect. See what develops for you as time goes on. You may find that your most useful outcome of social media is invaluable market intel that comes from the comments on your product posts that you originally hoped would generate sales. Or perhaps people start leaving reviews for you on Facebook, which become an important tool in converting leads into sales. Maybe you find that you get complaints via social media that provide an opportunity for you to offer outstanding customer service in a very public way. Navigating without a roadmap means you need to pay attention to your journey. Try to find an opportunity in the issues that arise. Be open to suggestions. Think of creative ways that you can utilize and expand upon the positives you encounter. Grow and evolve. And be patient. Good luck!

P.S. Read more as we begin our social media journey on Pinterest and Facebook.

P.P.S. For more information on using social media (as well as other online channels) to promote your business, read How to Grow Your Small Business with Online Marketing? by Sparkle Speaks.