Every marketer has heard the phrase "Content is King," but the content is meaningless without audiences and followers.
Social media is an effective way of getting your personalize content out to a larger audience and sharing your incredible new blog post these days.
Social networks like Facebook and Twitter, which have a readily available audience of millions, are some of the best ways to spread the word.
However, there is a super-easy way of optimizing your shared content to achieve its full potential: Open Graph Images.
When well-thought-out open graph images are used, a brand appears much more appealing and professional.
When a link to a web page is shared without an open graph image, all that can be seen is a grey box or a random banner. This grey box is quite unappealing and will not pique your audience's interest; in all probability, most people will scroll past your blog without noticing it.
This guide will explain what open graph images are, how important they are, and how you can use them to improve your social marketing.
What exactly is an Open Graph (OG) Image?
An open graph image (OG image) is the first image that emerges whenever you put up a link to a website page or video content on your social media platform.
This is one of many meta tags that have a direct impact on how content links operate on social media websites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
Other social media platforms are also making use of social meta tags. Twitter Facebook, and LinkedIn, for example, accept Open Graph meta tags; Though Twitter does have its meta tags termed Twitter Cards, and can use open graph meta tags in the absence of Twitter Card tags.
Open Graph has become a protocol that is widely used. It is generally compatible with any website. As a result, it's an essential tool to have.
What is the significance of Open Graph images?
Adding Open Graph images to your website will not directly affect your on-page SEO, but it will impact how your links perform on social media, so it's worth investigating.
Your target audience is likely to see, like, and click on shared content that includes optimized and pertinent open graph images, resulting in more traffic to the website.
The benefits of open graph images to your social media marketing efforts
These benefits come in the following ways:
* They'll make your content quite visually appealing and stand out in social media feeds.
* Effective communication - People can tell what the content is all about just by looking at it.
* They assist Facebook in determining what it is that the content is all about, which can help increase brand visibility via search.
* You will notice an increase in conversion and click-through rates.
* You can use the free advertising space to highlight and display your brand's distinct personality.
You simply cannot afford to overlook Open Graph images in your social media marketing strategy. Now that you understand the significance and perks of OG images, let's look at how to best use them.
What should the size of my OG image be?
The recommended size for an Open Graph image is approximately 1200 x 630 pixels and therefore should not exceed 5 MB; thus, always remember to optimize your image before uploading.
The minimum size for Facebook open graph image is 200 by 200 pixels. The landscape rectangle (1200 x 630 pixels) looks amazing on Facebook shares and is thought to be the best size for an open graph image.
When your original image on Facebook becomes less than 600 pixels wide, your posts appear differently in the feed. The image could well float to the left and appear in column format rather than being in full width and underneath the text.
LinkedIn, Twitter, and Pinterest also recognise OG images; however, the image sizing on Twitter differs from the rest.
Twitter requires that your image be no lesser than 144 x 144 pixels in size and no larger than 1 MB in size. Twitter will also resize images larger than 4096 x 4096 pixels automatically.
Open graph images can be manually uploaded to your website, whereas on platforms such as Shopify and WordPress, a few themes enable the feature image of your post or page to be automatically uploaded as an OG image only when none have been uploaded manually.
If you prefer to upload your OG images manually, you can remove the default og: image.
What should an Open Graph image contain?
Your OG image must be related to the content you are sharing; if your image is misleading, you will quickly lose your audience's interest.
An overlay of noteworthy and edgy text encourages engagement and clicks while also clearly displaying the content to the reader.
It could also include a memorable call to action – for example 'Learn More' or 'Find Out More Here'. Always keep in mind how the image will appear on various devices, especially smaller screens.
Incorporate a logo on all of your images for marketing purposes, so that people can recognize your content.
Open Graph Tag Types
Open Graph tags allow you to control how content appears when shared on LinkedIn, Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, and Slack.
These tags can be found in the “head” section of a web page. In HTML, they are represented by the "og:" meta property.
There are numerous Open Graph tags. The following are some basic examples:
1. Meta property og: image content
The meta property og:image content tag specifies the image to be displayed. This is the most important Open Graph tag. It makes your content more visible, attracts clicks, and encourages engagement.
Example of HTML: <meta property="og:image" content="your-image-url.png" />
Recommended Practices: File size, type, and image resolution are all important. For example, an image size of 1200 x 628 pixels is ideal for social media posting.
The smallest possible size is 200 x 200 pixels. JPEG, GIF, and PNG image formats are supported. Also, make certain that the size of the image does not exceed 5MB.
2. Meta property og: type
The type of content is defined by the object type meta tag. You can use object types such as websites, videos, music, article, and others. The object type you choose to use affects how the content appears.
Example of HTML: <meta property="og:type" content="music.song" />
Recommended Practices: Some object types necessitate the addition of a property. Choose "music. song" to define a particular song, or "music: album" to define an entire album. If no type is specified, "website" becomes the default.
3. Meta property og: title content
The meta property og:title content defines the web page's title. An instance is your blog post title.
An example of HTML: <meta property="og:title" content="Your appealing title here"/>
Recommended Practices: Make sure your open graph title is intriguing enough to entice people to click, descriptive, eye-catching, and no more than 60 characters in length. This length is ideal for avoiding truncation.
4. Meta property og: site name
The meta tag site name specifies the name of your internet site. The site name appears beneath the page title.
Example of HTML: <meta property="og:site name" content="your-website-name" />
Recommended Practices: Although the website name is not required, it does not hurt to include it. It indicates that your content is a part of a massive website or subdomain.
5. Meta property og: URL
The URL meta tag specifies the page's URL. It is the permanent identifier of the content. The link shared on most social media platforms will be broken if the URL is changed.
Example of HTML: <meta property="og:url" content="https://your-website.com"/>
Recommended practice: Keep your URLs simple and concise, and also make use of the canonical URL. A canonical URL aggregates metrics and metadata from all posts that share the same URL.
6. Meta property og: description content
The meta property og:description content describes your content briefly. For example, in 1-2 sentences, accurately describe the page using meta description.
Example of HTML: <meta property="og: description" content="Your brief description here."
Recommended Practices: Make sure your meta property og:description content is fascinating enough to entice people to click, concise, and no more than 200 characters. This length is ideal for avoiding truncation.
7. Meta property og: video
This open graph meta tag contains the Web address to a video embedded in your content. This property, for example, will showcase a Youtube clip on social media platforms.
Example of HTML: <meta property="og:video" content="your-video-url.mp4" />
Recommended Practices: Use extra tags to improve the appearance of your videos. "og:video: height" and "og:video: width", for example. These tags explicitly state the width and height of the video in pixels.
8. Meta property og: locale
This meta tag specifies the language of the content. The language is set to en-US by default.
Example of HTML: <meta property="og:locale" content="en-US" />
Recommended Practice: Use this meta tag if your content isn't presented in American English. Use this tag, for example, if your website is multilingual.
NOTE: When sharing links with software that supports the Open Graph protocol, Open Graph meta tags also generate a snippet. Examples include iMessage, Slack, Facebook Messenger, and WhatsApp.
How to Test as well as Debug Your Open Graph Tags
Check that the OG meta tags are operational and ready for sharing after you've added them. Use the following debugging tools for each platform:
The above Open Graph debugger tools function similarly. They display the crawler's scraped meta tags as well as any warnings or errors. Testing also allows you to see just how your content appears when it is posted on the platform.
Furthermore, debugging assists you in troubleshooting problems once your content does not display correctly.
For instance, if the incorrect title or image appears, you can use the Facebook debugger tool to clear the cache. Do this whenever you change the title, image, description, or URL.
What Is the Difference Between Open Graph and Schema Markup?
There are numerous microformats, which can be perplexing. You may inquire, "I'm already familiar with Open Graph. Should I also make use of Schema?"
The short answer is: Yes, you can use both to increase engagement.
Open Graph is a type of HTML markup that social networks use to display web content. The OG tags are used by social platforms to create rich objects in the social graph.
However, Open Graph does not provide search engines with comprehensive information about your page. OG tags, for example, cannot describe information about products, people, reviews, places, events, prices, and other topics.
Schema is only an HTML markup language used by major search engines like Google and Bing. It aids search engines in comprehending your content and effectively representing it in search results.
By creating rich snippets, schema markup helps to improve how your web page appears in search results. You can, for example, show a star Likert scale-rich snippet for a product in its result pages.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the Open Graph Image used by Twitter?
Twitter uses card tags that look similar to Open Graph tags and work the same way as the Open Graph protocol. You can create stunning Twitter cards using the Open Graph protocol without duplicating data and tags.
How big should an Open Graph Image be?
The most commonly recommended OG image resolution is 1200 pixels x 630 pixels.
How Do I Remove the LinkedIn Open Graph Tags Cache
You can clear the old cache and refresh the data by going to LinkedIn Post Inspector and then entering your link.
Final thoughts
Open Graph can greatly impact your social media success. This does not just apply to Web links you share on social media; its impact grows exponentially when people share your content.
It is critical to have control over the presentation of your snippets. It allows you to test which descriptions, titles, and visuals resonate the most with your audience, among other things.
Finally, properly configuring Open Graph helps bring more valuable traffic and multiplies your click through rates.
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