This article provides insights into how various social networks manage and display social share posts, focusing on the preview and optimization processes for links and images. It explains the importance of using network-specific tools like Twitter Cards, LinkedIn's Post Inspector, and Facebook's Debugger to ensure accurate previews and optimal display of shared content. Additionally, it addresses the nuances of image optimization across platforms and Facebook's policy on hashtag usage.
When creating or editing a post, the Stage composer displays a preview of your post, for each social network you've selected. As you add to your post, each preview displays updates in real-time so you can see what your audience will see.
While previews are as accurate as possible, some elements only get finalized by the social network when a post is published. This can result in minor differences between the preview and final post.
Preview Links
Link previews, for example, generate automatically, but each social network pulls link preview information differently from the link’s website. This means that the resulting link preview for a given link may not be the same on each social network.
Twitter
Twitter only displays link previews in tweets when the link’s website has Twitter Cards enabled. To verify the site you’re linking to has a Twitter Card, enter the link into
Twitter’s Card validator .
To guarantee that your tweet contains an image, you can attach your own image. Attaching an image overrides the preview if the link has a Twitter Card. The published tweet will contain a clickable link and a separate, uploaded image.
LinkedIn
LinkedIn posts generate link previews based on the data that LinkedIn extracts from each website.
Enter a link into
LinkedIn's Post Inspector to see how LinkedIn will read and process it. The tool helps you identify any missing data on the page and what you need to add to improve the preview.
Facebook
Facebook posts generate link previews based on the open graph meta tags (for example, og:image) that Facebook’s link scraper extracts from each website. If these tags are missing or incomplete, the link preview will be incomplete. Note that when publishing links to these sites using Facebook, Facebook tries to fill in the blanks with the data available, so link preview results may differ.
Enter a link into
Facebook's Debugger to preview how it will look when published to Facebook. The tool flags missing meta tags and anything else you need to fix.
If the URL was only recently published, Facebook may not have extracted the data for the link you’re trying to share. Wait and try your post again.
Note that on Facebook's most recent policy changes ( here ), they no longer allow more than one singular hashtag.
Preview Images
Images can also publish with different results depending on the social network.
Maximum file size (5MB, and 3MB for Twitter) are the only requirements for image files. Besides these, social networks accommodate image uploads in a wide range of dimensions and resolutions. This is because each social network applies its own optimization algorithms to images.
Images are optimized to look their best on each platform. Adjustments are made to best support fitting the allotted space, rendering the image in multiple sizes, and displaying it optimally on all devices and screens.
Social network platforms are constantly testing new optimization methods including image resizing, reformatting, scaling, and cropping. Because of this automatic image optimization, we recommend that you not place any overlaid text near the edges of your images.
If your image is published with unwanted adjustments, refer to the image upload recommendations from each social network:
To ensure your tweet includes an image, manually attach an image to your tweet, which will override the preview generated by a Twitter Card.
You can use LinkedIn's Post Inspector to see how LinkedIn will read and process a link, and to identify any missing data on the page.
If a link preview is not available because the URL has been recently published, you may need to wait for Facebook to extract the data. Try posting the link again after some time.
According to Facebook's latest policy changes, only one singular hashtag is allowed per post.
Social networks optimize images to fit their allocated space and display optimally across devices and screens, often using algorithms to resize and crop images. It's recommended to avoid placing text near the edges of images to prevent it from being cut off.
