Stop The Social Media Icon Insanity
August 30, 2011 
Author 
In There continues to exist a widespread, bizarre phenomenon of companies printing social media icons and sticking them on printed materials without any context or URLs.
Widespread, because you don’t have to look very far to find examples of doing it wrong. Bizarre, because this is basically free promotion for sites like Facebook and Twitter but does nothing to help these companies. It’s a stunning example of just how real the business world’s digital divide still is.
It’s also a systemic enough problem I was easily able to document in my personal travels the following 4 examples:
Example 1: the icons, no CTA, no URLs
Ummmm…and what exactly are we supposed to do here? Where do we go? Why should we? We can’t click your magazine ad, but thanks for the reminder that Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube and Foursquare exist. Because that’s what is happening here.
Example 2: the icons, CTAs …but no URLs
Unbelievable that a social media marketing conference put this on their printed flier. Strikingly absent is the most important item for a conference: the hashtag. And don’t get me started on the even more obvious missing URLs. To give them the benefit of the doubt, I tried a Twitter search and a Google search but came up short even finding these people on Twitter as one example. I’m sure I could have found it via operator queries and some more tries, but why would anyone do this? Makes me wonder if the people running the conference even understand the content that will be presented.
Example 3: icons and QR codes – no URLs, no CTAs
I took this photo the other day in Union Square in downtown San Francisco. On an absurdly busy sidewalk. As if someone is going to stop, randomly and notice the comically tiny QR code and load it up on their mobile. Instead of, I don’t know, entering the store? Again: Facebook and Twitter must be loving that the entire world is blanketing themselves with their logos. Sheer brilliance on their part. Absurd for any company to do without the URLs or at the very least the handles. Oh, and good luck to this store considering that, statistically, the odds are 1 in every 244 might even potentially use QR codes (and how many would actually stop on a busy street to load this up?).
Example 4: well, some are just hopeless
I found this on the back of a mailer that was sitting on the counter in our office. Can you spot all the things wrong with the above image? Not only did they include http://, www, the /#! in the Twitter URL and the /user in YouTube (all totally unnecessary) they even managed to mess up the Facebook and Twitter logo placement. It really begs the question: does the person who designed this even use the internet? Looks like they copy-pasted some URLs and threw this together in about 5 minutes. At least they provided some sort of benefit statement for each channel, although what’s up with the capitalization inconsistency? This really tells me nothing other than the company doesn’t care about their marketing.
Is this stuff really so hard to get right?
Oh, and if you’re looking for advice on what you should actually do to promote your social outposts in printed materials, Jonathan Richman has some tips.
John E. Bredehoft replied | Aug 30, 2011 (8 comments)
Any advertising message needs to be sanity-checked to make sure that the target audience can read it. For example, would an international visitor to Las Vegas know what a “Thu” is or why the list of numbers separated by periods is significant?
Example 2 is the worst of all. They should know better, but perhaps they assumed that their target audience could read minds.
Alex Aguilar replied | Aug 31, 2011 (18 comments)
This sort of thing, although misguided and pointless right now since you can’t really do anything with these stickers, will EXPLODE once Near Field Communication (NFC) enters into general circulation. When cell phones with NFC chips start finding their way into more and more pockets, you will see hundreds of NFC compatible stickers festooning commercial space everywhere. If you think Facebook and Twitter stickers in shop windows are annoying right now, you ain’t seen nothing yet!
janwong replied | Aug 31, 2011 (10 comments)
I couldn’t agree more! In fact, I wrote a similar post some months back because I can’t help but to notice the very same occurrences – icons without links. The last example cracked me up. The least they could do is to get the icons right haha!
David Cee replied | Aug 31, 2011 (1 comment)
Its a part of the social media frenzy. Companies are so desperate to be seen be ‘ in the social space ‘ they acting like bozos.
Step back and think . Social media is fine, to a degree, and if implemented correctly as part of a marketing mix.
These examples you have shown just say it all really don’t they ? Ohhh to be FaceBook or Twitter ! Other people spending their money to promote your business .Awesome.
Kristine Putt replied | Aug 31, 2011 (2 comments)
“…the company doesn’t care about their marketing.”
Exactly! If a company can’t demonstrate that they care about their OWN marketing (which is easy!), they cannot be expected to care about anything that’s much more challenging, such as product/service quality, value or customer loyalty. Poor marketing = poor business structure = “going out of business.”
Mark Burgess replied | Aug 31, 2011 (1 comment)
Great post and you make some excellent points. I actually think, however, the your Example #3, icons + QR codes provides brand recognition for FB and Twitter while leveraging the power of QR codes to deliver a message. Someone waiting for a bus may have time to explore. Granted, awareness of QR codes and having a handy scanner downloaded into your smart phone are still barriers — but that is changing.
Joseph Putnam replied | Sep 2, 2011 (10 comments)
Adam, I love this post. Just the other day I was in Wal-Mart and noticed social icons on airgun packaging (passing by, not buying, maybe later…). It was incredible.
There was no link showing how to get there and no CTA, and I couldn’t imagine what kind of content people would want on Facebook for airguns. Granted, I’m sure companies could produce good content on Youtube and FB to get people involved, but I also guessed that most companies probably do it horribly wrong.
This is a tiny rant, but it was the first time I considered social related to retail since most of what I deal with is online. It also fits very well with this post.
Thanks for the great article. I look forward to writing for you soon.
Des Walsh replied | Sep 3, 2011 (4 comments)
Imagine the conversation. “Should we put some of those social networking thingamies on it?” “Sure, we can do that. Cost you a bit more but should look cool.”
Sindre replied | Sep 5, 2011 (2 comments)
You are so right. I see this all the time. I still see no real value in the QR code, exept for maybe getting a few geeks who just discovered it on to my website (or social meida).
I think most companies are using QR codes and social media logos to show the world that they are part of the digital revolution, and not folling behind.
Shaquayla Mims replied | Sep 8, 2011 (12 comments)
These are sad cases of social media faux pas! I think some people have gotten so caught up in this social media craze that they forget the basics. Somewhere along the way, the message, and real reason for even citing various social media sources gets lost.
Steve : lifemarkchinatown.ca replied | Sep 12, 2011 (1 comment)
You have made some great points. I’m guessing most of them companies don’t really get social media or marketing and just threw the icons on the print material because someone said they should!