Everyone knows that printed business cards are a necessity for those attending a networking event or meeting, but how many business cards include full social media contact details and a call to action? Remember your business cards can be used as a miniature form of advertising and steer prospective customers into using your services.
The purpose of networking
A major part of networking is the cultivation of solid contacts who may not only require your goods or services, but who may be able to supplement and enhance your own. With social media being an integral part of most people’s networking campaigns, it is vital that you are able to tell as many people as possible about your social media accounts or handles. This is where printed business cards come in.
Contact cards or Business Cards?
Contact cards are not quite the same as business cards. Although the same size and shape, business card printing usually feature your name, job position and company, whereas a contact card features a photograph of yourself, contact phone numbers, email and web addresses, as well as the URLs for the social media platforms on which you have a presence, such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
But why have a contact card rather than a business card? Well, some professions are more suited to contact cards than business cards. For example, those who work from a home office may not want or need to include their full address on their cards, as their clients are unlikely to visit their premises or creative graphic design industry professionals may prefer to use contact cards because it reduces the formalities of networking and can arguably help within the networking arena. For such people, contact details are all they need to show on their cards.
Business Card Design
It’s easy to get contact or business cards wrong, however. When designing a business card, some people display the social media platforms’ logos and simply add their full name. However, with this method, the recipient of your card may have difficulty locating you on the platform, especially if yours is a common name. It is vital therefore, that you include on your contact card the full URL or social handle of each of your social media mediums so that they can be typed directly into a web browser.
Still need some convincing? Have a look at one of our previous articles: The Advantages of Business Cards
With us at PrintUK.com, you can have your business cards designed by our in-house graphic design team and printed on the highest quality stock available. Find out more about our business card design and printing service by getting in touch today.