Optimizing Sharing Message for Facebook and All Other Social Networks Except Twitter & Pinterest #
To personalize the information shared on Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and other social networks, you need to use Open Graph meta tags. These tags help communicate key information about your website to social media platforms when links to your site are shared. They allow you to customize titles, descriptions, and images that appear when your pages are shared.
Easy Social Share Buttons for WordPress can automatically generate these tags for you if the option is enabled in the settings. Alternatively, your SEO plugin may also generate them. It’s important to note that to ensure your shared message is accurate, you should only have one set of social media optimization tags on your site.
If you’re using tags generated by a different plugin, you can skip the instructions below.
Enable Generation of Social Media Optimization Tags (SMO) #
Note
If you don’t see the social sharing optimization menu activate from the activate/deactivate features function of the plugin.
If you are running a fresh plugin install (or you reset to default settings) the social media optimization tags are enabled by default. So you do not need to enable anything. If you are not sure visit Social Sharing -> Sharing Optimization and ensure that Open Graph Tags (Used By Most Social Networks) is enabled (Yes).
The Global Settings Suitable For Every Website #
The proper usage of social media optimization tags needs to do a quick general setup. That setup will ensure the working of tags on the way you need them.
- Default Social Media Image – The default social media image is those that will appear if post, page or product does not have a featured image or custom sharing image. We always recommend providing an image inside the field. This will prevent any further problems with parts of the site without properly generated tags.
- Generate image size tags – The option will generate image width and height as tags. While these tags are not required, they can help ensure faster and more accurate identification. Due to some server limitations, this option may sometimes cause an error when reading the image dimensions. If that happens, you can safely disable it — this will not affect the functionality of the tags.
Disable Social Media Optimization Assistance – Enabling this option will disable the plugin’s checks when editing posts for the default social media sharing values. This includes checks for image dimensions, as well as the length of the title and description.
Advanced Open Graph Options #
Advanced
- Enable Advanced Facebook Tag Fields: This option includes additional tags for your Facebook page, author profile, and page admins. Only enable it if you’re familiar with how to use them.
Images
- Allow External Images: This option lets you provide an image URL from outside your WordPress media library. By default, the plugin only allows images stored in the media library.
- Allow Multiple Images: This adds fields for up to 5 additional images that you can select for social media sharing. The social network will choose which one to display, and you won’t be able to control or show all of them. The order of appearance usually determines which image is picked.
- GIF Images Support: Set to “Yes” if you have animated GIFs as featured images (not needed for static GIFs).
WooCommerce
- Deactivate Gallery Integration: This option prevents WooCommerce gallery images from being included in social media tags.
- Deactivate Product Tags: This disables product-specific tags (such as price, availability, promotion, etc.) from being created. Enabling this will not stop your products from being shared, but they will use regular post or page tags instead of product-specific ones.
Expert
- Use the HTTP Version of the Page in Social Tags: If you’ve recently moved from HTTP to HTTPS and noticed your shares are no longer working, enable this option to restore them. Use with caution, as it may affect sharing counters. We recommend using the share counter recovery tool instead.
- Extract Full Content When Generating a Description: If your description contains shortcodes, enabling this option will extract the fully rendered content. Warning: Enabling this may cause conflicts with other plugins or lead to missing share buttons. If you notice issues, deactivate the option immediately.
Setting Your Optimized Message (Customize Default Generated Share Information) #
Homepage Social Media Optimization Information (Share Message) #
This is the information appearing in the sharing of your homepage. You need to fill and change from the plugin settings.
Single Post, Page, Product, Etc. Social Media Optimization Information (Share Message) #
Each post, page, product or any custom post type of your website will have automated social media optimization tags. Those tags contain the default components of content – title, description generated from excerpt and image from the featured image. For 50% of users that is good enough. But if you need to boost the social reach it is highly recommended to generate engaging and optimized sharing information.
That is why on each post or page in the edit mode you will see the Social Media Optimization tag fields. In the preview, you will see the default generated message. This is not a real preview, but an approximate view of what will appear when you share.
Using the fields you can customize one component of sharing or all.
In the social share optimization block on each post you can set:
- Social Media Image – Add an image that is optimized for maximum exposure on most social networks. We recommend 1200px by 628px
- Social Media Title – Add a title that will populate the open graph meta tag which will be used when users share your content onto most social networks. If nothing is provided here, we will use the post title as a backup. We recommend usage of titles that does not exceed 60 characters
- Social Media Description – Add a description that will populate the open graph meta tag which will be used when users share your content onto most social networks.We recommend usage of description that does not exceed 160 characters
- Customize Open Graph URL – Important! This field is needed only if you made a change in your URL structure and you need to customize og:url tag to preserve shares you have. Do not fill here anything unless you are completely sure you need it – not proper usage will lead to loose of your current social shares and comments.
- Article Author Profile – Add link to Facebook profile page of article author if you wish it to appear in shared information. Example: https://facebook.com/author