Get Creative - Personalize Your Blog's Social Media Icons

You may have noticed a few changes around my blog of late.  The truth is, I have gotten a little obsessed with stylizing - blog stylizing, that is.  After I started this blog, one of the first things I did was buy a pre-made Blogger template from Etsy.  I thought it made my blog look more professional, and let's face it, I did not have the skills to build something like that on my own.  However, I quickly learned that buying a blog template is a slippery slope… before you know it, you are being nickel and dimed for things like adding a social media icon, or almost any other change you'd like to make.

Still, I couldn't get enough of how cute some people make their blogs!  The matching icons, the creative fonts…oh my goodness!  I knew I had some learning to do, and the first thing I figured out was how to create your own social media icons.  (You can see my handiwork on the far right).  ;)  This way, you have complete control over your blog's appearance, and you can make your own social media icons to match whatever else you have going on!

INSTRUCTIONS FOR CREATING YOUR OWN SOCIAL MEDIA ICONS:

1.  Download vector images of the social media icons you want.  There are plenty of sites that have these for free, but I used Icons DB, and it worked like a charm!  Not only are there multiple icons to choose from for each social media platform, but you can choose what size you need, and even the color down to the HEX code.  You can also get some more stylized icons if you prefer.

Icons DB lets you choose from multiple icons for the same social media platform, such as Pinterest.  I will be using purple icons for this tutorial.

2.  Use Pic Monkey to turn your newly downloaded icons into something customized for your blog.  You can use pretty much any picture editing program for this, but Pic Monkey makes things easy, especially for beginners.  Select the "Design" option from Pic Monkey's website.  On the left hand menu, click on the butterfly icon to search through the available overlays.

I am going to choose a star overlay for this tutorial, so I went to the "Stars" overlay menu.  Choose your preferred shape, and then you can play with the size and the color until you get something you like.  I chose a star shape.

3.  Now, go back to the left-hand menu, and choose "your own" at the top of the Overlays menu.  We are now going to load the fun social media vectors you downloaded a moment ago!  Play with the size of your social media icon so it will fit over the star (or whatever shape you chose) overlay you just created.

Doesn't that look cute?  :)  Now, assuming you have more than one social media icon you'd like to make, select the original overlay you first created, right click (or on a mac control+click) and select "duplicate overlay."  A second overlay of your chosen shape will appear - move this so it is next to your first one, or the desired distance away.

4.  Now, go back to the "choose your own" overlay option to pick the next social media vector you had downloaded.  Follow the previous steps to make sure the size and placement matches your first icon.

5.  Once you have all of the icons you'd like in a row (or however you would like them arranged), it's time to make sure the image is sized properly for your blog.  First, crop the image as tightly as you can using Pic Monkey's "crop" tool.  Next, resize the image using Pic Monkeys "resize" tool.  For the purposes of this tutorial, I resized my image to be 150 pixels x 75 pixels for 2 icons, but you should resize according to your blog needs.  Now save your image!

6.  Now we need to make the images clickable, so your followers can click on the Pinterest icon and be taken to your Pinterest page!  To do this, there is an awesome (and free!) image mapping service via Image-Maps.com.  Go to their website, load up your image and click "start mapping".

7.  Right click on your first icon and click "Create rect" - size the rectangle so it is over your entire first icon.  Next, fill in the social media URL that this icon should link to along with a Title and ID (the title is what will show up when the mouse hovers over this image.)  Click Save, and repeat for your remaining images.

8.  Your image should now be mapped and clickable!  Right click on your image again, and this time choose "get code".  Click on the "HTML" tab to get your HTML code for this new, clickable image!  The code will be at the very bottom of the screen - copy this code.

9.  The following is what you would do in Blogger, but you can now use your code with whatever blog hosting service you use.  In blogger, and open up your layout settings to add a new gadget to your homepage.  You should choose the HTML/Javascript widget.  Paste your code into the widget, and make sure you've placed the widget wherever you want your icons to appear.  And…DONE!

These are finished and clickable - try them out!  (And please follow me on Pinterest and Google+!  :)

NOTE - UPDATE as of November 2014:  Unfortunately, Image-Maps is no longer a free service, and my logo's will no longer show up here…!  However, never fear.  This video will show you how to load your own images onto your Blogger blog, without using a 3rd party hosting service:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4hI5WmqpBw.  This is also possible via a Wordpress widget!  

There you have it!  Hopefully this inspires you to get creative with your blog template.  I am starting to take steps toward personalizing my blog template (although I am still using my purchased Etsy Theme as the main backbone), and will try and share ideas as I go along, if there are any other beginners out there like myself.  :)  

The New Blogger Blues

I don't think it is a secret that I am a new blogger.  (And by new, I mean that this blog has only been around for a few months, which means I have been blogging for all of 2 seconds in the blogosphere.)  It's aways inspiring to read some of the more established blogs that have been around for awhile (and by established, I mean that they've been blogging for a few years, and know exactly what their blog is, or what they want it to be.  That kind of thing shows! )  Love Taza - the Rockstar Diaries, Radical Possibility, and Story of My Life are a few blogs that come to mind when I think of "established blogs"that I enjoy reading, and I am learning from them every day.

I hope to still be around a few years from now, and hopefully I will have settled in and made this blog what it is supposed to be.  However, starting a new blog can be daunting, and I wanted to share a few things that I've been learning thus far!  (Again, I'm not saying I'm an expert, but these are things I now know to be true, even with my limited experience.)

1.  NETWORKING.  Oh my goodness, networking.  Prior to this blog, I thought that blogging was about putting some great thoughts out into the web, people would come across them, be dazzled and intrigued by your thoughts, they would tell their friends, and BOOM you'd have a blog.  Um, naive much?

There are probably millions of blogs our there, half of which are trying to do the same thing as you, so if you don't get off of your butt and make an effort to reach out to other bloggers and individuals, the only people who will come across your blog will be bots or VampireStat.com.  (Don't go to this link or google it - just trust me, it's bad.

2.  YOU HAVE TO READ OTHER BLOGS.  Duh!  Not only can you be inspired by what others write, but to blog well you have to be aware of what is going on in the blogosphere.  What is that blog doing for promotion?  Who is doing what kinds of linkups?  Wait, that blog also knows that other blog that I also read - what a great opportunity to connect!  Etc etc.

3.  FOLLOWERS DO NOT HAPPEN OVERNIGHT.  At least they haven't for me, although I have heard that for some blogs that this does seem to happen.  I'm not sure what they are doing differently than the rest of us, but for the majority of blogs, I don't think you should expect this, and that's okay.

4.  BLOG FOR YOURSELF, NOT FOR YOUR FOLLOWERS.  Your blog shouldn't be about how many followers you have.  Your blog should be about YOU and what you want to put out there; how you want to express yourself.  While you want your blog to get found, at the end of the day, blog for yourself.  Anyone who does end up following along will be able to connect with you on a much deeper level, which is the whole point, isn't it?

5.  DON'T GO CRAZY WITH SOCIAL MEDIA.  I might be standing alone here.  I've read a lot of "beginning blogging tips" on other blogs, and most of them say things like "if you aren't on Facebook or Twitter, you are losing followers!"  So obviously, one of the first things I did was sign up for Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

However, after only a couple of weeks, I felt like these multiple social outlets were just vehicles for wasting my time.  I'd get confused - what would I post on Twitter but not on Facebook - is it okay to post the same thing on both?  If I share a photo on Instagram, should it also go on Facebook?  What exactly was I trying to do with these accounts?  I had no idea, so I ended up taking these off my blog.

Now, I am only actively using Pinterest, Google+, and Bloglovin', none of which confuse me at all.  I know that a lot of blogs (most, probably) have mastered exactly how to use multiple platforms of social media to connect with people, but I'm just not one of them yet.

Eventually, once I've built up Google +, maybe I'll get back on Twitter or Facebook - but for now, it was just too much.  (Quick note - I really love Google +.  I know it's the newer of the social media platforms, but the way it allows you to connect with communities and new people is really awesome.  Plus, I blog via Blogger, which is built into Google and Google +, so… bonus!)  :)

6.  TURN ON YOUR COMMENTS!  One of the blogging tips I read about a month or so ago was to turn off the comments on your blog until you have built a bigger following, since seeing the "No Comments" at the bottom of your blog posts is a turn-off to potential readers.  So, I turned off the comments on my blog.

Thankfully, one of the bloggers I had recently connected with (shout out for Sofie from Little Green Sofie - thanks again, Sofie!) sent me a message that comments was one of the best ways to connect with other bloggers, and recommended I turn them back on.

Obviously, I did, and have met several new people since then that I never would have otherwise.  I'm not sure why this blogging tips post recommended that new bloggers turn off the comments on their blogs for awhile, but for me, this turned out to be bad advice.

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So far, I think these have been the real "Ah-Ha" moments of my 3 month blogging journey.  Are there any other new bloggers who have anything to add?  After all, we all want the same thing, right?  To share parts of ourselves and connect with others doing the same thing?  Best of luck to all the new bloggers out there - hang in there, I hear that it really does get easier!  :)

NOTE:  All of the images used in this post - aside from the Word Cloud, which I made via Wordle.net - have been taken from royalty free websites such as Morguefile.com.  Thanks!