Social Media Icons on Shopify: Which Profiles, Where and How

Your theme probably has social icons already

Most Shopify themes come with a set of social icons, usually in the footer, filled in from the theme settings. If yours does, that spot is covered and you do not need anything else for it. Start there: open your theme settings, check every username is current, and remove any network you no longer post on.

A footer is a long way down, though, and it is the same on every page. A social row earns a second appearance only where it does a job: under a product people photograph and share, near the end of the home page, or on an about or contact page. To plan one, the social media icons tool for Shopify cleans your profile links into usernames, flags the ones that will not work and previews the row as a real store widget.

Link the profile, not a post

The commonest broken social icon points at the wrong thing. The usual slips:

• A post, reel or video link. Copied from the share button, it opens one piece of content instead of the account. Open the profile itself and use that address.
• A short share link. Short links from a share sheet hide whose profile they belong to. Open them and use the address they land on.
• A personal page instead of the business. A LinkedIn profile under linkedin.com/in/ is a person; the store wants its company page. A Facebook personal profile is not a business page either.
• The old address. Twitter links still redirect to X, and Threads moved its web address, but a username that changed since the icon went up sends people nowhere.

Most networks only need the username, the part after the address. Writing that down, rather than a long link with tracking on the end, is the easiest way to keep the icons right when a network changes its addresses.

Pick the networks that fit what you sell

Three to five icons is plenty. Past that a row of logos is scanned rather than read, and each extra one is another way off the page. Choose by two tests: where you actually post, and what each network is built for.

• Fashion and beauty. Photos, outfit and tutorial videos: Instagram and TikTok first, then Pinterest or YouTube.
• Home and decor. People plan rooms slowly and save ideas, which is what Pinterest boards are for, with Instagram and YouTube after.
• Gadgets and gear. Buyers want to see it working, so demos on YouTube lead.
• B2B, wholesale and maker brands. Trade buyers check who is behind a business: a LinkedIn company page and how-it-is-made videos.

This is judgement about the networks, not data about your shoppers. If your store analytics show visits arriving from a network you would have ranked low, it has earned its place. And leave out any account that went quiet: an icon promises something worth following.

Put the row where it helps

Every social icon is a way out of your store, into a feed full of other things. That is fine for someone browsing and costly for someone about to buy, so place the row by what the page is for:

• Product pages. Below the product details, after everything that helps someone decide. Never beside the buy button.
• Home page. Near the end of the content, for the people who scrolled that far and are not ready to buy yet.
• Collection pages. Below the product grid, so it never pushes products down the page.
• About and contact pages. The most natural home of all: someone reading about the brand is the person most likely to follow it.

Icons alone or with names, theme colours or brand colours

Icons alone keep the row small and work when there are three or fewer well-known networks. Put the names beside them when the row is longer, or when a network has a newer logo that plenty of shoppers will not know at a glance.

Icons in your theme colours sit quietly beside product photos. Brand colours make each network quicker to spot, which suits a contact page with a few networks better than a product page. Whichever you choose, use each logo as its owner supplies it: every network publishes brand guidelines, and some, such as Snapchat, ask that their mark keeps its own colours.

Next step

Gather the profile links you want to show, then open the social media icons tool to clean them into usernames, see which ones suit your store and preview the Social links widget from the Nudgesmart app on a sample store page. You publish it from the app. The other store widgets are in the store widget gallery.

A social row is one of several widgets competing for space on your pages. For how to decide which ones earn it, see which product page widgets earn their place.