Social Media Blues

In Marketing, Michigan Creative by Melissa Meschke

Ever noticed that almost every single one of your social media app icons on your phone is blue? When it comes to social media sites and marketing, it turns out that the sites themselves put just as much thought into marketing as do the businesses that use them for this purpose! So what does the color blue have to do with marketing? More than you would think!

Blue is calm, makes you feel safe and is often used to represent communication, as it is the color of intellect. Other colors, for example red, green, yellow, etc., are extremely bright and make you feel more alert. When you’re looking over your social media apps you’re most likely just passing some time or checking out what your friends or up to, so you might not need to be fully alert and focused. Since it is not one of those bright, attention-grabbing colors, blue does not distract you from the page content.

A lot of these blue social media icons are also combined with white. White is simple and does not really add to or take away from the already simply blue color, so it makes for a good combination. Whether it is dark blue, light blue, or somewhere in between, it doesn’t matter… blue is blue! You can darken or lighten it as much as you want, but it will always stay blue. Once again we can use red as an example here: if you lighten it too much, it turns pink, etc.

You could also say that a lot of people simply have a preference for blue and, as good marketing companies themselves, social media sites are aware of this fact and use it to appeal to their users. It has been shown, through various surveys and research, that blue is actually the favorite color of the world!

 

Later!

-Alli

 

I would like to thank the following sites for providing some great content:

http://www.digibuzzme.com/why-color-blue-is-popular-with-social-media/ 

http://blogs.terrapinn.com/internetshow/2012/07/04/facebook-popular-social-networks-blue-primary-colour/

http://www.aliciacowan.com/social-media-and-digital-marketing/strategy-and-advice/social-media-giants-branding