How to add social media icons to your signature

Relevant Products: Signature Manager Exchange Edition | Signature Manager Outlook Edition

Here we’ll show you how to approximate the same social media approval interactivity in your email signature – like a Facebook ‘Share’ button or Twitter ‘Follow’.

You’ll see how to embed the correct social network image in your email signature, link it to your online profile then ensure it’s functioning correctly.

Interactive Links

1. In the Signature Manager Exchange Edition, locate the desired template then click Edit.
   
   
   
   
2. In the Template Editor, click the area you’d like your social media button (or buttons) to appear and then from the Fields drop-down list, click Dynamic Content then click Social Media Strip.
   
   
   The Social Media Strip window is displayed.
   
   
3. Select the social networks you would like to include. 
   
   Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube are included by default. Select an icon from the Available Icons list on the left then click Add to add this icon to your social media strip.
   
   
4. To remove an icon from your strip, select it and click the red ‘X’. 
   
   
5. If desired, click Add New to add an additional social media icon that isn't already included in our Available icons list or the default social media strip.
   
   The Add Icon window is displayed.
   
   
6. In Icon Name enter the name of the social media icon.
   
   
7. In Location, select the image you want to use.
   
   
8. In Hyperlink, add a URL.
    
9. In Alt Text, enter an alternative text.
   
   
   
   
10. In each social media icon, you’ll need to modify the URL so it corresponds to your own social media profile.
    In this example, Twitter is selected and the Twitter Field is expanded - this way you can see the Hyperlink field - add a URL.
    
    
    
    
11. By default, it only links to the homepage of that social network site. We would recommend going to your profile on the social media network and simply copying the address of that page.
    
    Alternatively, some social networks have special URLs that can express an ‘intent’ to interact with the network. For example, Twitter supports URLs that will take a user straight through to a page where they can follow, mention, reply to or retweet you simply by logging in.
    
    
12. Remember to repeat this for every social media icon in your social media strip.
    
    
    
    
13. Adjust the height and width of each social media icon in the Image height and Image width fields by entering the desired height or width in pixels.
    
    ‘0’ will display the image at its default size. As mentioned before, remember to do this for each social media icon in the strip.
    
    
14. Click OK to finish editing the social media strip. If you want to edit it from within the social media strip window again, just double-click on the strip.
    
    
    
    
15. Click Preview to see how your strip will appear in the context of your signature.
    
    
    
    
16. When you’re happy with your design, click Save & Close to apply your changes.
    
    
    
    
17. Click Save on the top-right corner of the console beside Cancel and click Yes when prompted.
    
    
    
    
18. Send a test email to confirm it looks as intended.
    
    
    
    
19. Click on your social media icon to confirm that each one links to the appropriate page.
    
    

Content from file

Some social media networks don’t support RSS feeds, so in those cases, you can set up a simple workaround to still display the same content in your signature.

1. Create an HTML file in the same shared area your email signatures are kept, which you can update with your most recent Tweet/Facebook status/LinkedIn status etc and the software will automatically draw content from that HTML file and display it in your email signatures.
   
   
2. Open Notepad and enter the raw HTML for your most recent social media entry, in this example it is a Tweet. So, for example, I’ve hyperlinked the ‘@’ mention and ‘#’ hashtag to the appropriate URLs:
   
   @Exclaimer New email signature webinar goes live in 10 minutes! Join in before we fill up! http://exclaimer.com/we...
   #emailsignatures
   
   Which will ultimately appear as:
   DataPlusIT: @Exclaimer New email signature webinar goes live in 10 minutes! Join in before we fill up!
   http://exclaimer.com/we... #emailsignatures
   
   
   
3. Save the file in your Signature Deployment Share (as this folder should already have the necessary permissions and settings configured) or any folder where the NETWORK SERVICE has at least Read permission.
   
   
   
4. Change the file extension from ‘.txt’ to ‘.html’.
   
   
5. In Windows File Explorer, click Organize and select Folder and search options, go to the View tab then deselect Hide Extensions for Known File Types.
   
   - A warning message is displayed prompting you about the risks of changing a file extension. Click Yes to proceed. 
   
   
   
   
   
   
6. Now, in your email signature software, select the template you would like to display a social media feed. In that template, click Fields, go to Dynamic Content then select Content from file.
   
   
   
   
7. Navigate to the shared folder you placed your HTML file in earlier. In this example, it’s the Signature Deployment Share. Select your HTML file then click Open then click OK.
   
   
   
   
8. You may want to put your social media profile name just before the Content from file link. Example:
   
   
   
   
9. Click Preview to check that the content is being imported and displayed correctly.
   
   
   
10. Create as many HTML files for as many social media feeds you’d like to display in your signature, consult the appendix for guidance on how to correctly hyperlink social media features (example: hashtags and @mentions).