Importance of Facebook Open Graph
Appealing images catch attention. This is an age old advertising principle. And even now in the digital age or marketing, it still is a game changer to have not just a great title, description, and overall copy, but to also have an enticing, attention grabbing image. If you want leverage on social-media traffic, you need to invest in captivating pictures for your Open Graph images.
What is Open Graph?
Introduced by Facebook a decade ago, Open Graph was created to promote integration between Facebook and websites in the form of rich graph objects that mimic the functionality of Facebook objects.
In technical terms, the Open Graph Protocol, or simply Open Graph, are structured markups that you can add to your HTML code to “explain” the content of your objects and in turn, gives the website owner or programmer control of snippets displayed when URLs are shared to platforms such as Facebook and other social media sites.
In a less technical manner, the Open Graph Protocol gives you control on what title, description, and image will appear in social media sites whenever you share a URL from your website.
What is the Importance of Open Graph?
Content maybe king, but what is a king without subjects? Ergo, your content, no matter how amazing it is, is pointless if no one would care to see it. And in social media platforms, appearances mean everything. If you want your website or your page to look good and appealing on a social media platform such as Facebook, then you need to have control over what shows up whenever you share your links.
You want the proper description, title and image to show up whenever you share your links. Imagine, the impression your website would have on people, if your post with a link to your website, shows up with the wrong title, a description that doesn’t make sense because the wrong lines are appearing, and instead of a picture about the page is displayed, your improperly sized logo shows up. Literally no one would bother to stop scrolling when they chance upon your post.
How to Assign Open Graph Tags
To gain control over what title, what description, and which image to show up when sharing a URL, you need to add codes like the ones below to your HTML
Title — <meta property=”og:title” content=”Your Amazing Title” />
Description — <meta property=”og:description” content=”Your Fantastic Description About Your Page” />
Image — <meta property=”og:image” content=”http://www.yourwebsite.com/image-pictureyouwant.jpg” />
This is how it will appear:
Without proper OG tags, your post with a link from your site may look like this:
You may end up with title that is not catchy, a description that does not make sense, and a blurred image of your website’s logo. And no internet user will get enticed with that.
No Coding Experience?
Assigning the right OG tags might pose to be a daunting task for someone with no coding background. The mere mention of HTML may already throw you off your chair. But fear not, because most web development platforms with visual editors allow a certain level of ease in assigning these tags. How? Using the same drag and drop builder.
However, be warned, because not all platforms provide the same liberties. Shopify, for one, will automatically assign the main product image on the product page as the OG Image. For non-product pages, you would have to change a few things on the liquid code. In WordPress, it would depend on the plugin that you are using, and not all plugins are user friendly to begin with.
Good thing there are website and funnel building platforms that provides ease of use for users. In MonsterFunnel for example, assigning the social sharing image is as easy as uploading an image from your desktop. You can easily assign the OG title, OG description, and OG image in the page settings pop-up and you are good to go. Build your website today and share pages with captivating OG objects.
