Recently we at Delivra have been working on a feature that lets users insert, into their mailings, social media icons that recipients can click on to easily share a mailing (or part of a mailing) with their network of friends. Not only would we track which icons were being clicked on, we would also track which users shared which content, from which mailing, on which network, and how many times the shared content was viewed--all so that our clients can measure the viral appeal of their messages and identify list members whose sharing behavior makes them most valuable targets for follow-up messaging.
The implementation called for us to provide a single toolbar button in our WYSIWYG editor that allows content creators to define the behavior of the clickable social media icons--including which networks to make available to recipients--and have the requisite HTML code inserted into their mailing automatically. When it came time to choose a graphic for this toolbar button, we faced a bit of a dilemma.
It seems there's no shortage of icon images out there that depict the logos of each of the most popular social networks in a variety of styles. But for our toolbar, we weren't looking for a Facebook icon, or a Twitter icon, or any one network's icon. We needed a single graphic that could convey the concept of social networking in general, and within just 16x16 pixels.
So we were pleased to discover the Open Share icon. Its creators write that it "conveys the act of sharing by visually representing one hand passing an object to another hand, as in 'pass it on' or 'sharing'. The icon also represents an 'eye', as in 'look at this'." We tried using different color schemes for the icon but ultimately stuck with the original white-on-green, because of its similarity to another familiar icon now owned by ShareThis. Thanks to its creators for making this simple, but effective image freely available for public use!
Chris Broshears | Product Development
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