?? The Complete Guide to Social Media Sharing URLs and Open Graph Tags

Social media sharing can make or break your content's visibility. Let's explore how to optimise your URLs and meta tags for maximum impact across social platforms.

?? What Are Open Graph Tags?

Introduced by Facebook in 2010, Open Graph (OG) protocol has become the standard for controlling how URLs appear when shared across social media. Think of them as your content's social media business card.

?? Essential OG Tags

<!-- Basic OG Tags -->
<meta property="og:title" content="Your Title Here">
<meta property="og:description" content="Your compelling description">
<meta property="og:image" content="https://yoursite.com.au/image.jpg">
<meta property="og:url" content="https://yoursite.com.au/page">
<meta property="og:type" content="article">

<!-- X-specific Tags -->
<meta name="twitter:card" content="summary_large_image">
<meta name="twitter:site" content="@yourusername">
<meta name="twitter:creator" content="@yourusername">        

Unless you want your social posts to show some random image from your web page then you need to know to do this.

This is before:

This is after:

?? Free Tools to Help

There are some excellent tools available to debug and preview your social preview images:

Social Share Preview - Chrome Web Store

Sharing Debugger - Meta for Developers

OpenGraph - Preview Images and Generate Open Graph Meta Tags

?? Generate and Preview Social Media Share and Meta Tags

Opengraph.xyz has a great feature to generate your own using their wizard for free, then copy and paste into your HTML See: OpenGraph - Preview Social Media Share and Generate Metatags - OpenGraph

For larger websites you could even use an API to automatically generate the tags and images for you.

Advanced Tips

?? Key Implementation Tips

1. Always include fallback meta tags
2. Update OG tags when content changes
3. Use absolute URLs for images
4. Implement proper canonical URLs
5. Monitor social sharing metrics

?? Future Trends

• Rich media previews
• AR/VR content sharing
• Interactive previews
• AI-generated meta descriptions

?? Common Pitfalls to Avoid

1. Missing required tags
2. Inconsistent information
3. Broken image links
4. Outdated content
5. Non-optimised images

?? Measuring Success

1. Track engagement metrics
2. Monitor click-through rates
3. Analyse social sharing patterns
4. A/B test different meta tags
5. Review social media insights

Remember: Social media sharing optimisation is not a set-and-forget task. Regular monitoring and updates are crucial for maintaining optimal performance.

Would you like me to expand on any of these sections or provide more specific implementation examples?

?? React / NEXT.js Instructions

React likes to strip any meta tags that you add manually to the Head tag.

In your layout.js add the following metadata.

export const metadata = {
    charset: "UTF-8",
    viewport: "width=device-width, initial-scale=1, shrink-to-fit=no, maximum-scale=2",
    title: "Peter Bardenhagen Online Resume",
    description: "Peter Bardenhagen Online Resume",
    robots: "index,follow",
    twitter: {
        card: 'summary_large_image',
        domain: 'peter.bardenhagen.xyz',
        url: 'https://peter.bardenhagen.xyz',
        title: 'Peter Bardenhagen Online Resume',
        description: 'I am an innovative digital enterprise leader with a proven track record collaborating with top - tier global consulting firms.Leveraging technology, I address business challenges, enhance customer experiences, and drive growth.My passion lies in building products, solving challenging business problems with AI powered solutions, and designing robust architectures.',
        image: 'https://peter.bardenhagen.xyz/imgs/preview.png'
    },
    openGraph: {
        url: 'https://peter.bardenhagen.xyz',
        siteName: 'Peter Bardenhagen Online Resume',
        description: 'I am an innovative digital enterprise leader with a proven track record collaborating with top - tier global consulting firms.Leveraging technology, I address business challenges, enhance customer experiences, and drive growth.My passion lies in building products, solving challenging business problems with AI powered solutions, and designing robust architectures.',
        locale: 'en_UK',
        type: 'website',
        images: [
            {
                url: 'https://peter.bardenhagen.xyz/imgs/preview.png', // Must be an absolute URL
                width: 1200,
                height: 630,
            }
        ],  // Audio not used
        videos: [
            {
                url: 'https://peter.bardenhagen.xyz/imgs/preview.mp4', // Must be an absolute URL
                width: 1200,
                height: 630,
            },
        ],
        logos: [
            {
                url: 'https://peter.bardenhagen.xyz/favicons/icons8-favicon-papercut-512.png', // Must be an absolute URL
                width: 1200,
                height: 630,
            },
        ],
    },
};

// Add <metaData /> in your <Head> tags        

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