Do you need a logo or a slogan?

You’re trying to get attention for your business. You’re on Instagram. Maybe you’re also on Facebook and Twitter.

Social media is great. But your business also needs a great-looking logo and a creative tagline or slogan to make your social media marketing worth your time.

Design a Great Logo

Customers should be able to tell what you do just by looking at your logo. Your logo should give possible customers a great first impression of your business. Use software like Photoshop to design your own logo.

Before you begin, write one sentence about your business. This can be a mission statement or a sentence that tells how you help your customers. Use this sentence to guide how you design your logo.

Here are some other logo tips:

• Check out the logos of other businesses in your industry.

• Make it simple. Make it clean. And make it work. A great logo is easy to reproduce, memorable and distinctive.

• Use your logo to show off your business’ most important and/or unique benefit.

• Limit your colors. Try to use no more than 3 colors.

• Protect your logo. Trademark your logo to protect it from use by other companies. You can apply for a trademark at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Web site.

Create an awesome slogan

What makes a slogan memorable? Something that represents your brand and is easy to remember.

Here are some slogan tips:

• Keep it short and simple. Your slogan should be 10 words or less.

• Be consistent. Make sure your slogan fits the style and tone of your logo, business name, and your business’ image and/or reputation.

• Get help. Your friends, customers and social media followers can help you create a great slogan. Use Facebook’s poll feature to get opinions from your followers. Use Twitter to host a slogan contest with a designated hashtag to track entries. Or use free tagline generators, like Sloganizer.net or SloganGenerator.org.