Changing your brand to fit social media

When it comes to branding, how does your logo look when used beyond your website and print marketing?

I design for small businesses and medium size corporations and social media has become a very important platform to communicate with our audience. It becomes increasingly hard to keep up with the changing sizes, shapes and spots on social media we must fill with graphics.

On Facebook, we have different shapes for our profile (square); cover image (rectangular, but once on mobile, the sides get cut off); event images (not as long as the cover); and posting images which can be shown a variety of ways depending on what you are attaching (an actual photo or four, or a link).

All of these issues are the same on other platforms as well, except different sizes are needed.

If we look at Google+, the cover image must be a certain size but then when viewed on mobile only the center area shows up, so we must design a graphic and get the important information in the right area for it to work, and then the graphic looks too spacious on a larger screen.

So, what do we do when we are creating a new brand, communication and logo? Do we need to design our logo to fit the new ways of communication?

Examples of brand communication and visibility issues:

  1. A local business shows off a new logo, which is a rectangular shape, except that in the post the sides are cut off.
  2. Another local business takes their latest advertisement and uses it in the cover image, which only shows a part and really doesn’t look right.
  3. One business tries to use their new logo in their cover image which doesn’t fit and gets cut off.

Solutions to this problem:

New graphics must be created to suit each spot needed. If your logo is a rectangular shape, it must be inserted into the shape appropriate for the spot. I realize this is a problem when we try to use it in the little profile square. It becomes hard to see and read.

However, there are situations like this when we might expand or contract our branding. If your logo has both an icon and a wordmark, perhaps you create a square graphic that is just the icon for the profile spot, but when you create a cover image you insert your full logo in a corner of the image.

I will admit that having a square logo is much easier to use, given any situation and social media platform, but we cannot expect well-established brands to change their logo to fit social media.

What’s important is to show your company brand in its best light, no matter where you are posting.

Previous Facebook cover image for Susan Newman Design that looked fine on FB but was cut off on mobile devices.

Previous Facebook cover image for Susan Newman Design that looked fine on FB but was cut off on mobile devices.

 

New Facebook cover image where the important information is seen on any device. I dropped the image of myself on this graphic, since it is the profile image.

New Facebook cover image where the important information is seen on any device. I dropped the image of myself on this graphic, since it is the profile image.

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