Social media symbols to copy, and what they mean

Apps restyle these icons now and then, but the shapes have stayed recognisable for years, which is why text look-alikes such as ♡ ❍ ⎙ ⌲ still read as “like, comment, save, share” at a glance.

There is no character for the Instagram camera, the Facebook f or the TikTok note. Unicode, the standard that defines every character your phone can show, leaves company logos out on purpose: its rules for new emoji list logos and brands among the reasons to turn a proposal down. The same rules exclude interface icons, which is why there is no official share or save symbol either, only look-alikes borrowed from other symbol sets.

Sites that offer a copy-and-paste logo use one of three tricks. Some hand you an image, which can’t go into a caption. Some use an icon font, which puts the logo on a private-use code point that only displays where that font is installed, so everyone else sees a blank box. Apple’s own logo works this way, at U+F8FF, which is why it shows on Apple devices and not on most others. The rest give you an emoji stand-in, like the ones in the set above.

Tip: 𝕏 is the maths letter double-struck capital X (U+1D54F). It looks close to X’s logo, so people use it as shorthand, but a screen reader may announce its full maths name.

• @ followed by a username turns into a link to that account and usually notifies its owner. On Instagram it works in captions, comments, bios and Stories.
• # turns the word after it into a hashtag link. The idea was first suggested on Twitter in August 2007, and the other big apps took it up in the years after.
• $ before a stock ticker, as in $AAPL, makes a cashtag on X: a link to posts about that company’s shares.

• A green dot on a profile photo in Instagram or Messenger chats means the person is active now or was very recently. Turning off Activity Status on Instagram hides yours, and you stop seeing other people’s.
• 🔴 LIVE is the usual text marker for a live stream, matching the coloured LIVE label apps show on a broadcast.
• WhatsApp uses ticks: one grey tick for sent, two grey ticks for delivered, two blue ticks for read.
• Snapchat puts emoji next to friends’ names: 🔥 for a streak of snaps on consecutive days, ⌛ when a streak is about to end, 💯 at 100 days, and 💛 for your number one best friend.
• Instagram marks Close Friends Stories with a green ring around the profile photo and a green star badge.

• The ♡ ❍ ⎙ ⌲ line is a common last line for a carousel or a quote post. Its tiny words are phonetic modifier letters, which screen readers may spell out or skip, so write the call to action in plain words too if it matters.
• In a bio, one stand-in per app is enough. “👻 same name” is clearer than a row of emoji that only hint at logos.
• For photo credits, 📸 followed by an @mention is widely understood, and the mention links to the photographer’s account.