When you are planning your new logo, it is important to keep in mind that you may need more than one option.
Planning Your Primary Logo
More than likely, you will be hiring out the work of actually designing your logo. A good designer will know key components about what makes a great logo and represents your brand well. However, what you get in exchange really matters.
Ask for the raw file of your logo in whatever program the designer used. Typically this will be a .psd Photoshop file. You may need to resize your logo, add it as part of another image (like a Facebook banner on your page) or integrate it in to your web design. By getting the original raw file, you will be able to resize as needed.
Planning Alternate Logos
Often primary logos are approximately rectangular. But, when you need to integrate that logo into a tiny thumbnail on Facebook or Twitter, you are now constrained to a square image. Google+ even makes the icon look like a circle instead of a square.
If your logo has a symbol in it, many choose to omit the text and just use the symbol. Attempting to squish the entire logo into a square may end up unreadable.
You may also use this square logo as your favicon. This icon is a shortcut from mobile devices, computers, and even displays in the tabs in your browser.
If you want to watermark any of your social images, you may also want a solid color (like white) version of your logo to display in a lower corner indicating your brand.
As you are planning, spare yourself some frustrations and have an alternate logo layout. You will thank me later.
