We all know the power of images when it comes to social media.
In today’s quick tip I’m going to detail how to use Facebook’s ‘Sharing Debugger’ Tool to force the platform to update your OpenGraph information.
You may need to do this if you’ve previously published a website that doesn’t have all the required OpenGraph information (i.e. title, description or most likely image) but then want to share this via social media later.
If you’ve already updated information through your website editor and are just looking for the quick way to update the preview on Facebook:
Step 1. Head to Facebook’s ‘Sharing Debugger’ Tool
Step 2. Enter the URL address into the main text box and press the “Debug” button.
Step 3. The Debugger should load the latest ‘scrape of your website. If you’ve recently updated information and the Debugger doesn’t show this, press “Scrape Again”.
That’s it — your updated information should now show in the ‘Link Preview’ area. If it doesn’t , you may need to wait a bit or double check you’ve published the changes to your website.
As an extra tip, if you’re a Webflow user like we are at Wakeford Digital, here is a quick break down on how to edit your OpenGraph information for each page.
Step 1 — Start by opening the Pages tab in Webflow.
Step 2 — Hovering over the desired page, click the “Edit page settings” cog icon. This will open up a tab with the page settings.
Step 3 — In the Page Settings, scroll down to the ‘Open Graph Settings’ section. Here you can input elements including the title, description and image.
Tip: You can also select the “Same as SEO…” check boxes to populate this information with what you’ve already written for your SEO title and description.
Special tip: We often use Dropbox to store our OpenGraph images, using the ‘Copy Dropbox Link’ option — however, you have to change the number on the end from ‘0’ to ‘1’ (as per the image above) to force the link to download.
Hopefully this quick fix helps you solve those sticky situations where your link image doesn’t appear on Facebook.
If you’ve enjoyed this read, any support at all via Wakeford Digital, https://www.facebook.com/Domin8Designs/ and https://www.instagram.com/domin8designs.com.au is always appreciated.
-Cheers, Dom.
