It’s a really good idea to include your social networking url address (like www.twitter.com/deniseoberry) in your printed marketing materials so your customers can find you online.
Along with those urls, you can also use the social network icons to give your marketing piece a bit more visual appeal. But don’t use the icons by themselves. Your customers will have to work to hard to find you and will more than likely forget after they’ve left your business.
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I found a good example of this when my husband and I dropped by Sonny’s BBQ for a bite to eat last week. (Love that sliced pork!) They had the social networking icons on their marketing flier, but did not include the urls. I’ve circle them in the picture of their brochure.
So I went searching for the urls. I found them on twitter and FaceBook, but even with all my sleuthing I didn’t have any luck finding them on YouTube (anyone know?).
I don’t think most people will go to that much trouble. Play it safe with your printed marketing materials and include the url along with the social networking site icon.
The easier you make it for your customers, the more you’ll attract. And that will give you opportunities to connect in more places.
What do you think? Please leave a comment with your thoughts.
About Denise O'Berry
Nice post. I agree that you should make it as easy as possible for your customers to find you on these social networking sites. I’m thinking a combination of the site’s logo as well as a url may be the best solution. The social networking logos are easily recognizable yet you still need to provide an easy way to find your site/page/feed.
Exactly! Using the icon and a url would be a good thing. That way I could find you with my smartphone while I’m sitting at the table dining. Expecting people to remember after they walk away is asking to be disappointed.
Thats a good point ! We are looking at printing our brochures for the charity and I don’t like to add the URL as it doesn’t look nice but probably it is the easiest way for people to find us. If you have any tips for our website or facebook page let me know! http://www.inspiredbypeople.org and http://www.facebook.com/pages/Inspired-By-People/167763406596125
Anniek — Glad it was helpful to you. Yes, the icons do look better but don’t help people find you. The only thing I see you should do for now is to make sure you get your short username for your Facebook page. You can get it here – http://www.facebook.com/username/
But isn’t there a trademark infringement issue by using the Facebook or Twitter logos? Or do Facebook and Twitter allow use of their logos on marketing materials?
Andy — That’s a good question. I checked on Facebook and found this use policy http://www.facebook.com/brandpermissions/logos.php Doesn’t seem like they approve of the use, but it is rampant on and offline. The Twitter guidelines appear to allow it https://support.twitter.com/entries/77641 I’d stll rather see the actual address of the Facebook page or the Twitter handle. Just displaying the logo makes the customer do too much work (which most won’t do). Thank you for stopping by and sharing your thoughts.