This morning the Small Business Administration released a list of tips on brand building. Tip #7 caught my attention, and got me thinking about ways small biz owners can promote their presence on the social web. Before I delve into the design samples for your inspiration, I want to clarify that this strategy probably shouldn’t be your Plan A as far as business cards. Unless you’re a social media manager by trade, you should probably print at least 1 set of traditional cards with the usual logo and contact info. In my professional opinion, it’s never wise to rely on third party sites too heavily in your advertising. You want to send as much traffic as possible to your website directly; if you only print business cards to promote your Facebook page, you could end up hurting your growth in the long run. That said, there are plenty of instances where it’s entirely appropriate to focus on social networking in the offline world.
Local Business Marketing with a Facebook Page Design
True brick and mortar businesses have a fairly limited online audience. Local SEO can be highly competitive depending on the industry, and Google Plus certainly influences search results in powerful ways. Still, it’s easier to connect with people in your neighborhood through your Facebook fan page than on Google +. Besides, Facebook reportedly plans to create its own search engine that may rival Google’s popularity. Position your mom and pop shop to conquer a geographic area with this Facebook inspired business card design:
Twitter Style Cards for Events
Twitter cards are a bit trickier for companies as opposed to personal brands. Twitter’s user base isn’t as big, at least outside of certain niches i.e. journalism, so I have concerns about the ROI of zeroing in on the micro-blogging site. Nevertheless, Twitter brings excellent opportunities for event marketing. A lot of events are now connected with specific hashtags, which makes it worthwhile to print special business cards to highlight your Twitter account:
Note: the above template is for a mini business card size (3.5″ x 1.5″)
LinkedIn Profile Cards for the Sales team
Corporate sales reps usually have premium LinkedIn accounts, particularly those who work in the B2B sector. If LI plays a big role in your outreach plan, then it makes sense to model your card design after your online profile. Unlike the Facebook fan page concept, LinkedIn cards would likely make more sense at the individual level as opposed to promoting a company page. There are surprisingly few good examples with a LI theme online (designers, here’s your opportunity to publish an awesome template). I’m not crazy about the one below, but it’s the best example I could find:
Where are the Pinterest Business Cards?
I really wanted to include a Pinterest themed design, but I couldn’t find one for the life of me. I would love for someone to point me in the right direction because I see a lot of marketing potential on Pinterest, and I hear real estate agents are doing very well on this visual medium. Have you seen any cool Pinterest cards? Tell me in the comments below!