Travis Joseph (TJ) Young's Personal Website and Blog

Before I found this one out through researching online, reading a few blogs, and eventually finding this youtube video, I would only have those lame text-only links in my signature block.  You know, the kind that look like this:

Travis Joseph
http://www.twitter.com/TravisYoung82
http://www.facebook.com/TJYoung82
http://www.linkedin.com/in/TravisJYoung
http://www.foursquare.com/TravisYoung82

But don’t you want it to look more like this:

With all the numerous social media profiles out there that people can join, myself as case in point, if you wanted to include links to all your sites you signature block could be half a page long!  Well, I found a very simple solution!

This how-to is for Mac users only, using the Mail.app application so I’m sorry if you are running other systems or using different applications.  But, as I have not tested it, this could also work for others not on Macs and using other mail programs.

Anyway, let’s get started:

You can find these icons almost anywhere on the web, but I have found a good resource where you can download a whole bunch of them for free (or a small donation of your choice).  Open this page in another window and click on Download It!  Once you click on the link the file should download to your computer automatically and we will be needing this file later so remember where you saved it!

Open your Mail.app application and go to your preferences by either clicking “Command + ,” or clicking ‘Mail’ in the menu bar then ‘Preferences…’  Once you are there, click on the ‘Signatures’ tab and you will need to create a new signature for whichever account you want this be attached to.

To make this easier, open the folder that contains your downloaded icon pack and resize your mail window so that you can see both the Mail program and the folder with the icons at the same time.  On a Mac, this will be just a matter of dragging and dropping the icons into the space where you are going to type your signature.

So type in whatever you want as text, for example, your name, phone number, etc.  Drop down a line and start dragging in the social media icons that you want in your signature in the order you want them to show up, left to right.  Reordering is a bit difficult, so try to get the order right the first time.  You should notice the icons dropping in aligned left, on the same line, one by one, side by side.  The pack you downloaded has each icon in two sizes, so choose whichever size you prefer, but I suggest you keep them all the same size.

Once you have all your icons in line, you can then click on one, it should highlight, the either hit ‘Command + K’ or click on ‘Edit’ in the menu bar then ‘Add Link…’  Here is where you will enter in the URL of the social profile you want the icon to link to, such as http://www.twitter.com/travisyoung82.  Click OK after you entered it in and the link has been created!  Do that for each icon and you’ll be good to go!  Simple as that!

There is a video on how to do this as well, so be sure to check that out if you have any problems.  Otherwise, thanks for reading and good luck!