How to customize link previews on Facebook using ShareKit
If you’re not satisfied with the preview of a link — just change it!
Anyone who is responsible for content curation has probably come across the challenge that the previews of links shared on Facebook aren’t perfect. Actually, the default titles, descriptions and images determined by Facebook are often of very poor quality.
Up until a few months ago, Facebook page admins were able to modify these elements. However, recently, Facebook has decided that this is no longer possible and that those who want to share a link to a website have to rely on the choices and preferences of those who developed it. But this entails the risk of publishing posts that are not at all attractive, do not appeal to your target audience or — even worse — go completely unnoticed.
ShareKit has been developed to solve these problems. It’s a tool that works as an intermediate between websites and Facebook, allowing you to customize the titles, descriptions, and preview images of links before you share them. Let’s see how it works.
How ShareKit works
The team that developed ShareKit put the main focus on designing a tool that is convenient and easy to use. The process of modifying the link preview is therefore very simple:
When you enter the URL of a web page that you want to share and you can then see how it would look like on social media if you do not customize it. In this interface, you can now edit the title and the description by just clicking on the respective fields. Via the upload function, you can also change the image that is displayed. Once you are satisfied with how your link preview looks, hit “Save”.
ShareKit now displays a new URL (e.g. sharekit.io/test123) that you can copy and share on social networks.
This is an example of how you can improve a link preview using ShareKit. As you can see, the image quality of the new image is much better and the image itself is more meaningful, as well. The title and the description are more concise and appeal to the specific target audience.
Keep track of your link’s performance with ShareKit’s analytics function
As an added bonus when using ShareKit, you can get detailed analytics of the clicks obtained from each URL that you have shared. This helps you to monitor performance and identify characteristics of those users that have clicked on your links. ShareKit’s analytics feature is more accurate than Facebook’s own tools, since it will also capture clicks if users share your link outside of Facebook.
How to get ShareKit
If content curation is an important part of your social media strategy, give ShareKit.io a try. ShareKit offers three different subscription plans starting at $19 per month. There is a 14-day free trial — no credit card needed — simply go to the website www.sharekit.io and register.
