Should you put social media icons on a business card?
The default answer is no, and the exceptions are worth knowing, because for some businesses the social handle is more useful than the website.
When they earn their place
If the platform is where your work is actually seen, put it on. A photographer, a florist, a barber, a baker, a joiner with a workshop full of things worth looking at: for all of them Instagram is the portfolio, and the handle is a more direct route to the work than a website. Recruiters and consultants have the same relationship with LinkedIn.
When they clutter the card
If your last post was fourteen months ago, leave it off. An abandoned account does more harm on a card than no account, because someone will look. The same goes for platforms you keep for personal use, and for the full row of five icons that says you have accounts everywhere and an audience nowhere.
How to do it without wrecking the layout
- One platform, two at most. Choose the one you would actually want someone to open.
- Icon plus handle, not icon alone. A logo on its own tells nobody what to search for. Put the handle beside it.
- Keep icons small. Around 4 to 5mm. They are signposts, not features.
- One colour. Set them in your own brand colour or in grey. Five icons in five brand colours pull the eye away from your name.
- Line them up. Same baseline, even spacing, on the same alignment as everything else on the card.
- Put them on the back if the front is getting crowded. The back of most cards is doing nothing.
One thing to check before printing
Platforms change their logos, and using an old one makes a new card look old. Take the current icon from the platform's own brand resources page rather than from a clip art pack, and follow whatever their guidelines say about clear space and colour. Then check your handle by typing it on a phone from the printed proof, not by copying and pasting it.
Getting the card printed
We print business cards to order in Ireland at the standard 85 x 55mm, with the artwork set by our designers if you would rather hand it over, quoted with the job. If you write on your cards, choose uncoated business cards, because a laminated surface will not take a pen. They can be set to match the rest of your business stationery, so everything you hand over looks like it came from the same business.
