How to Add Social Media Icons to Your Email Signature

The goal of social icons in an email signature is to give recipients an easy path to platforms where they can learn more about you professionally or follow your work. The key word is professionally, not every platform belongs in a work email signature.

Which Social Icons Actually Belong in a Professional Email Signature

LinkedIn, Almost Always Yes

For anyone in a professional or business context, LinkedIn is worth including. It's the professional network. A LinkedIn link lets recipients verify who you are and see your background without asking. For salespeople, recruiters, consultants, and executives, it's essentially required.

Twitter/X, Depends on Your Field

If you're active on Twitter/X professionally, posting industry commentary, engaging with others in your field, or if your Twitter presence is part of your professional identity, include it. If you use it primarily personally, leave it out.

Instagram, For Visual Businesses Only

Photographers, designers, real estate agents, stylists, chefs, and others in visual industries should include Instagram. For office-based professionals, it usually looks out of place.

YouTube, If You Create Video Content

Trainers, educators, consultants with YouTube channels, and anyone for whom video content is part of their professional brand. Otherwise unnecessary.

What to Avoid

Facebook (unless it's a business page), TikTok (unless it's professional content), Snapchat, and any platform you haven't posted on in months. Linking to an inactive profile sends the wrong message.

Getting Icon Images

The cleanest approach is to use the official brand icons from each platform. Most major platforms publish official icon files for use:

• LinkedIn: download official icons at linkedin.com/brand/downloads
• Twitter/X: brand assets at about.twitter.com/brand/resources
• Instagram: brand assets at about.meta.com/brand/resources/instagram
• YouTube: brand resources at about.youtube/brand-resources

Alternatively, services like Simple Icons (simpleicons.org) provide clean SVG versions of hundreds of brand icons. These are more flexible since SVGs are scalable, but you'll need to serve them from a hosted URL for email use.

Correct Size for Social Icons

Social icons in email signatures should be 20–24px. Smaller than 20px and they become hard to tap on mobile. Larger than 28px and they start to dominate the signature visually. Keep them all the same size, and leave at least 6–8px of spacing between icons.

The HTML for Social Icons

Here's the structure for a row of two social icons using hosted images:

<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0">
  <tr>
    <td style="padding-right: 8px;">
      <a href="https://linkedin.com/in/yourprofile"
         target="_blank">
        <img src="https://yoursite.com/linkedin-icon.png"
             width="24" height="24"
             alt="LinkedIn"
             style="display:block;">
      </a>
    </td>
    <td style="padding-right: 8px;">
      <a href="https://twitter.com/yourhandle"
         target="_blank">
        <img src="https://yoursite.com/twitter-icon.png"
             width="24" height="24"
             alt="Twitter"
             style="display:block;">
      </a>
    </td>
  </tr>
</table>

Always set both width and height attributes on the image (not just CSS) to prevent layout jumps when images are loading. Use target="_blank" so links open in a new tab.

The Text Link Alternative

If you'd rather not deal with image hosting, you can use text links instead of icons. They render consistently in every client, they work without images enabled, and they're actually more accessible:

Simple, clean, works everywhere.