12 Ways Your Logo Impacts Social Media Marketing

12 Ways Your Logo Impacts Social Media Marketing

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Effective Logos

This is a guest article contributed by Pat Malloy*.

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Social media now affects all facets of business – from marketing to end customer support and everything in between. Social media is where you see product and service feedback. Social media is where you learn what your customers like… and don’t like. And it’s the quickest way to build brand recognition within your target market.

So where does your logo fit in to social media marketing? Although small in size, it’s an extremely important element that contributes to the success of any social media campaign. Think about it – your customers (both potential and current) will see it on a daily basis. They’ll form a perception of your company that will stay with them forever… This article helps you make the most of these brand perceptions with the following sections:

  • 5 Design Tips for an Effective ‘Social Media’ Logo
  • 7 Ways Your Logo Design Impacts Social Media Marketing

Let’s dive right in!

There are several aspects that go into a logo design – colors, fonts, taglines, and more. But, when you’re designing what we like to call a “social media-approved” logo, there are many other variables to consider as well:


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  1. Be mindful of your aspect ratio – A majority of social media sites will require you to convert your logo to a square (or nearly square)-shaped thumbnail. This is a great Video Thumbnail Maker. Your logo doesn’t need to be a perfect square, but should have the capability of being easily converted to one. It’s best to make use of all the space you have so your logo won’t have to be compressed or reduced to fit into the small space.
  2. Be consistent – With an effective social media strategy, your logo will be seen on a variety of sites – Facebook, YouTube, and your personal site to name a few. For this reason, it’s best to have one logo you use for every site. This is also helpful in case a site requires you to crop or resize your image – you want a logo that looks the same, regardless of what’s done with it.
  3. Use detached text and graphics – When designing, make sure your text and graphics are separate elements. This will help if it ever needs to be converted to a different size. In fact, some companies use a single graphic or single letter in social media for ease of use.
  4. Simplicity matters – If you have an intricate logo, you run the risk of some of the elements not being recognizable when it’s resized. For this reason, you should avoid long taglines, thin lines, and detailed graphical elements.
  5. Limit colors and shades – A logo that uses 2-3 colors will work better on a “busy” social media sites because it stands out and won’t get lost in the backdrop.

7 Ways Your Logo Design Impacts Social Media Marketing

Whether you like it or not, social media gets many aspects of your business “out there” and visible to a wide audience. And your business’s logo has a strong impact on how your business is perceived in the market. It lets your customers know what you’re selling and can even help them remain loyal customers for years.

Here are some of the top ways your logo impacts social media marketing:

  1. It can help increase followers, friends, and shares – A professional and attractive-looking logo on a webpage or blog post is more likely to be shared with friends than one that doesn’t look reliable or trustworthy.
  2. It increases perception of your business size – Having an attractive logo and branding will make your business look professional and bigger than what it is – even if you’re a team of two or three that work in your pajamas.
  3. It shows professionalism and increases trust – A well-designed logo shows that your company is professional and more importantly, can be trusted. Customers will get the sense that your company will be around for years to come.
  4. It communicates your story – Your story can be communicated in many ways, from a meaningful picture to your font and color choice.
  5. It helps you stand out from competitors – A logo that’s visually interesting and relates to your clients will help your business materials – from your website to all print materials – stand out from the competition.
  6. It drives brand recognition across platforms – When a logo is used consistently over many platforms, customers will get several impressions of the logo, thus creating more memorability. Since many people are visual learners, they’ll remember your brand better when they see it, rather than hear or read about it.
  7. It helps make your customers happy – An attractive and effective logo will appeal to your customers and make them happy to be associated with you. This includes everything from the logo’s colors and fonts to its overall image. The bottom line is that you want customers to get a good “feeling” from you.

When creating a logo for your social media campaign, keep in mind that a good one won’t necessarily work in every social media platform, but these tips can help you create a logo that gives you an attractive online presence.

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About the Author:
*Pat Malloy is a designer and a writer. He believes a good logo design improves business – and it doesn’t have to be expensive.

About Jacob Cass

Jacob Cass is a brand designer & strategist, educator, podcaster, business coach and the founder of JUST Creative, an award-winning branding & design consultancy that doubles as an industry-leading blog. Get in touch.

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44 thoughts on “12 Ways Your Logo Impacts Social Media Marketing”

  1. I think that these rules not only go for social media, but stretch way beyond it.

    The things you mention – being consistent for example – goes for everything. You want your logo to look the same anywhere you place it (brochure, car, website, facebook).

    It goes for all the rules you mention.

  2. Great points and tips! Consistent branding is necessary for social media but also for anywhere else an organization would like to establish a presence or connect with customers.

    Inconsistent branding is like working at some high security place with thousands of other people but showing up each day with a different face on your ID. Sure you could explain who you are and whatnot but why go through the rigmarole time and time again?

  3. Whenever I design a logo for a client, I include a Social Media package where the logos are resized for Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn for free. I will also provide the logo in a format for any other site they happen to be on (since most sites are fairly close to the same size). It brings a sense of continuity to the brand, and recognition that can be built simply by people visiting social media sites.

    Great thoughts Pat!

  4. This reminds me of the documentary Super Size Me. Morgan Spurlock showed pictures to little kids and every single one could identify the McDonald’s logo. But only a handful recognized a picture of Jesus. Just goes to show how powerful logos and advertising are.

  5. You have given away some useful suggestions on social media marketing. However, besides these, consistency is also an important aspect when it comes to pushing your business via social media.

  6. What a powerful article. Great pointers! Especially like the tip on separating text from graphic. I can’t tell you the number of times I want to include a logo in a post about a company or use it in a flyer and have to airbrush in Photoshop or something. Thanks so much. I have bookmarked this page and am following you closely.

    EF
    http://www.LeftFieldWebDesign.com

  7. Hey Pat! Really good tips, they will make my work easy. Thanks! For my first musical project, we used the vote system on our website, we allow our fans to choose the logo … this is a very good way to attract attention and to choose a really good logo.

  8. The tips for designing your logo for use in social media are good ones. These are also good basic tips any logo design should follow. The design should be able to be reproduced in a variety of media, at any size.

  9. Interest to know about 12 Ways Your Logo Impacts Social Media Marketing, I think logo is important to impact social media marketing but i’t not only go for social media

  11. Good logo designs that have existed before online social media usually have no problems being used as avatars, backgrounds, buttons, etc. and its because those logos were designed to be scalable and recognizable.

    These tips just go to show you how much more important it has become for logos to be recognized at scalable sizes.

    All the best Pat and great work.

  12. Agree, a simple and noticeable logo can have a big influence on followers and the like, but as others have mentioned these guidelines apply to logo design in general, a logo needs to be replicated easily.

  13. Great article! Its really have a great impact and really can have many followers and friends. Thanks for sharing this.

  15. Thanks a lot! Article is great and all your tips are helpful for all readers.
    Keep it up!

  16. Very nice article! Strong points and lots of good tips along with clean and simple ways of doing things.

  17. Thanks for sharing this valuable info, I agree with your points in on logo design and the importance of branding on SEM outlets.

  19. Great tips! Many underestimate the importance of that tiny little icon next to your brand in social media platforms. It really is a huge tool for recognition.

  23. I absolutely love this post. We are a smaller studio and we don’t dress up, but putting a professional face forward with our logo design and marketing material helps us put a fresh face forward when we’re on social media. Great Post.

  27. I would agree in principle with some of the comments made here. Whilst it’s important that your logo stands out on social media sites, enabling you to build a relationship with potential clients, the list above extends across a multitude of situations.

    A logo is a encapsulated piece of any company. It says what the brand is, what they do, what they sell and is instantly recognisable by customers around the world. Taking the examples above, the colours used and the shape of the logos, every element is carefully crafted to ensure maximum retention by clients.

    As such, placing logos on social media sites is a way of pushing that retention on one of the fastest growing communication platforms around. Social media however, is merely a small piece used to build the brand up. Advertising online and on TV still far exceed the social media push at the moment.

  28. From favicons to facebook, and from taglines to twitter, I have noticed that the brands that transfer well from one type of media to another are simple logo devices, especially with a square aspect ratio.

    Word marks, especially long names do not transfer well. However, if a word mark uses a highly unique, stylised type face, such as Coca-Cola, or Virgin, a single letter from the word mark can be used in a square aspect ratio for enlargement. Many organisations employ this technique for their favicon image.

  29. The aspect ratio is probably the most critical point of this post. Speaking as someone who’s done a lot of logo design, this wasn’t as much of a consideration in the pre-social-media world.

  31. Yes that is absolutely correct, any visual presentation on your website is sure to affect the retention level and conversion rate of the traffic that SEO efforts drove into your site. It is important to understand how a graphically designed content can impact your potential site visitors and what market you are targeting , because with that knowledge you can use the tips mentioned above and make it work!!!

  35. social media is key nowadays and its also important to have a strong logo to represent your business. Great points and article

  36. I agreed that these are some really good tips on logo design for social media. As a graphic designer, i’ve been designing logos for years, but only for the recent past few years that the issue of how the logo could fit well in Social Media platforms has come to my concern.
    Yes, Social Media Marketing is the big thing now, and the logo does give impacts. However, as far as graphic design is concerned, a logo is supposed to be designed to reflect and based on the identity of the company itself (if it is a new company that yet to have a logo), not solely based on the Social Media platforms, as it will also appear in all of the corporate identity system, such as biz cards, letterheads, etc. It must also look attractive in all kind of medium.
    Then, what about established companies who already hv their logos recognized worldwide, for example Coca-Cola? (and many others). It is a logotype with curvy display typeface, which is horizontal and definitely not simple. Problem might occur when they want to adapt the logo into Social Media, as it won’t fit well in the square thumbnail ratio and will affect on the readability and aesthetically. Yet, for the sake of consistency and brand recognition, they couldn’t change or amend the logo just to fit in the Social Media platforms.

    Just some of my thoughts from different point of view, and a question out of my curiosity. Hopefully will open up for more discussion, and we can find the best solution…Thanks..;-)

  39. These are very impotant pointers Jacobs and also it could help a lot of aspiring underground designers. Am glad what ways blogs like this has done to simple and greatminds. Thanks.

  42. Great article Pat! One of the most simple ways to create a big impact with your company logo and really brand yourself offline is getting custom made laptop, ipad and smartphone cases with your logo on them. I have hooked clients up with this and the feedback has been great. Imagine your whole sales team with matching laptop cases and logos at your next meeting. I recommend clients use http://www.customlogocases.com

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