.svg){kind=logo}
The central goal of a digital business card is to digitize the information on paper business cards into a format suitable for interactions between modern devices like smartphones.
Beyond that, digital business cards support the technology modern networkers need to stay up-to-date and in the loop, whether on social media, in person, or elsewhere.
In this piece, we will examine the theory, tooling, and technology that power the modern alternative to paper business cards and answer your questions about how digital business cards work.
So how do they work? Well, in simple terms, they work just like your paper card but live in a digital format. The objective remains the same: to swiftly share your contact and business information with someone you meet as quickly as a handshake.
As we all know, paper cards involve printing details onto a small piece of card stock like your name, company, logo, phone number, and maybe email. Great and simple? Sure! But think about how you reach out to anyone today. It's digital, and you'll likely find or search for a contact digitally before reaching out; we aren't referencing Rolodexes anymore (I never got the (mis)fortune to have owned one 😭). So why are we still exchanging this information in a physical format?
A digital business card takes all that information (and much more), formats it into a modern contact like a vCard, and stores it digitally on your device or the internet as a QR code or link.
The great part? This digital approach instantly removes two big possibilities for new connections to drop off.
- Awkwardness: No more worries about typos, awkward device exchanges, or "What's your LinkedIn?" lines.
- Lost or Trashed: If there is no paper, there's no worry of your card slipping through the cracks—quite literally.
After the initial interaction, your details are instantly saved on their phone. Sounds great, right? But wait, there's more (shout out Billie Mays).
Key Components of a Good Digital Business Card
So, what exactly makes up a digital business card? The cool thing about digital tech is that we can now store, share, and use much more information to add detail and value to each interaction. A digital business card is a layer of technology optimized for networking success.
A digital business card can do many things, from helping your team network across all the platforms, tools, and situations in which they work—extending the sharability of your brand, messaging, and content.
You'll find the following properties in any great DBC (Digital Business Card):
Cross-platform networking
Any quality DBC will be available across multiple digital platforms, making it easy to network how and when you want. DBCs can live on various platforms, such as web pages, mobile wallets, QR codes, email signatures, etc. This versatility is easy when things are digital but impossible to replicate with paper. This simple enhancement removes the need for what we like to call napkin networking, where you meet someone without your business cards handy.
Support for a vast amount of content
Digital business cards can hold much more information than traditional paper cards, resulting from moving information into a digital format. Here's a breakdown of what you can include:
- Contact Information: Your name, title, company, phone number(s), and email(s).
- Social Media Profiles: LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, or any other social profiles.
- Website Links: Share your website, portfolio, marketing pages, or relevant links.
- Multimedia: Add a profile picture, logo, or short video introduction.
- Additional Details: Include other relevant information, such as company descriptions, product information, and interactive elements like calendar invites.
Sharability
You can effortlessly share your digital business card in person or online. Whether through a quick scan of a QR code, a tap of your phone via NFC, or a link in an email, sharing has never been easier. This flexibility ensures you can always make a connection, no matter where you are or what tools you have on hand.
Your digital business cards should also be unlimitedly sharable. If that's not the case, we recommend you search for another provider.
Digital business cards are designed to be more interactive and versatile than their paper predecessors, making them a powerful tool for modern networking.
Easy to update
Probably the core value feature of any digital business card is its flexibility to be modified or adapted to changing life and work.
Unlike paper cards, digital business cards can be updated anytime and instantly be ready to keep networking. Have you changed your job title? Moved departments? Got married? Update your card(s) immediately without printing new ones.
An even more niche use case is the ability to add specific customizations, branding, and content for specific events or conventions and then revert when the event is over.
How do team digital business cards work?
The sweet thing about digital business cards is that they lend themselves perfectly to scaling within an organization because of all the above attributes.
As it is, most organizations have some form of business card, often managed by an internal marketing team or at the department level. The effort to manage them is not typically a re-occurring task. However, it can get complex, time-consuming, and inefficient when branding, teams, and contact details change. The reality is that your employees have other jobs to do.
With digital business cards, none of that matters anymore. With just a few clicks, even one team member can shift the branding, content, or details of one or all the business cards within your org.
Read more about updating your team's business cards in minutes.
A good team digital business card has some or all of the following properties:
- Central card management: Letting your admins create, update, and manage your cards all from one tool.
- Integrated branding: A good tool, often powered by templates, will help you integrate your brand into your business cards for a seamless feel.
- Bulk tooling: Automation, migrations, and other tooling to allow your admins to manage the business cards of hundreds of employees at once.
- Integrations & Business Tool: From lead generation to contact sharing, analytics, directory services, and more. A good tool will effortlessly integrate into your existing marketing or HR workflows.
If you’re looking to explore more about the utility and value of digital business cards at scale, check out our guide to enterprise digital business cards
The technical part of digital business cards
We could talk for hours about the inner workings of the technical applications applied to digital business cards, but I’ll spare you the experience and just cover the basics.
The software tooling
Your digital business cards will always start with a tool unless you’ve decided to go in-house. By tool, we mean usually an app or a piece of software, depending on whether you're in an individual or team environment, respectively.
The digital business card tool is the most important technical aspect as it sets the foundation for how your cards will look, function, cost, and so on. There are hundreds of tools on the market, each focused on different market segments, features, and platforms.
Tools like Social Card usually offer platforms for individuals and teams that focus on different experiences and features. Your tool of choice will be the home for the cards you create and maintain the ‘cloud’ or online nature of your card, managing things like updates, links, and analytics.
If you're in the market, make sure you consider the features most important to you or your team before purchasing a product.
The business card part
Now that you’re away from the paper, your business cards are digital, and with such comes new ideas for how to use and share your cards. As we touched on above, most digital business cards offer some form of QR code or link-based sharing. Two things most of us are aware of, but how do they replace my business card? Well the answer is tech that’s been hiding on our phones, laptops, and other “smart devices” for years. That is the contact card (or formally vCard).
In simple terms, a vCard is a collection of data points about a person (or organization), like name, titles, phone numbers, and so on. This collection of information can be formatted into a file that can be shared almost universally between modern smart devices, and when shared, our device automatically recognizes and interprets the information.
It’s pretty cool if you ask me. Our mobile device overlords working together!
When your business card's QR is scanned, or your link is clicked, your provider will share this nicely formatted contact card with the recipient's device, and voilà all your contact and business information is one click away from permanent residence in their devices.
It’s not as fancy, but it is equally as useful. If you’d rather not share a contact card, you can easily make your QR codes or links share pretty much any piece of content that is accessible via a web URL, from booking calendars to videos and marketing pages.
--
Digital business cards are a cool technology with a large set of features and applications across the business landscape. So, now that you have a better idea of how they work, you may be ready to add them to your arsenal of networking tools.
