It is a very good habit to preview or test first your link before sharing it on Facebook or Twitter. This way, you will be able to see what the actual post will look like inside this two powerful social media networks. A good looking post will absolutely drive clicks and traffic into your post. It will also make your friends, fan page likers or followers re-share, like, and comment about it. The same goes for Twitter, they will retweet your tweet which is also equivalent to reshare. The more interactions and activities, the more traffic will come to your website. Imagine, if you have over 200k likers and followers on your Facebook page and you share a good-looking and eye-catching post coming from your blog or website, what you can expect is the so-called referral traffic from it.

url-preview-fb-twitter.jpg

When sharing a post on Facebook or Tweeter the main secret are first, it is good-looking and catchy. And second, if you are managing a fan page, make sure it is related to what your fans really want otherwise, they will just ignore your post. And Facebook, might think you are spamming. Multiple warnings of spamming can lead to the blocking of your entire website or blog on Facebook.

Now that we know the importance of URL preview, we are now going to use two powerful tools to perform the process for the link that we want to share. Good thing for us, both Facebook and Twitter have their own link previewer. See the process below.

A. Facebook


1. Copy first, the link that you wanted to preview or see the look.

2. Now, open Facebook Debugger, access here.

3. In the Sharing Debugger, paste the link that you copied at Step No. 1 and then press the Debug button.


4. If "This URL hasn't been shared on Facebook before" appears, just click the "Fetch new information" button to continue.


5. You will then see a lot more information regarding your link or URL. Go and find the Link Preview section. If you see that it only contains your website's main url, title, and description and there's no image, just find Time Scraped and click the "Scrape Again" button.


6. After clicking the "Scrape Again" button, your Link Preview will now have its image like the sample below.


7. You can now make all the necessary changes to your link before officially posting it on Facebook. If you think that it really need changes, then go ahead and edit your post. When, you are satisfied already, then re-preview your URL and share it on Facebook.

B. Twitter

1. Copy your post URL.

2. Go to Twitter Card validator, click here.

3. In the "Enter the URL of the page with the meta tags to validate" paste the URL you copied from Step No. 1 and click the "Preview card" button.


4. Unlike Facebook, Twitter validator will only show you the actual URL preview when viewed on Twitter.


5. Now, if you think the URL preview is good enough already, then, you can tweet it now. But if you are not yet satisfied with it, you can edit the post first.

OBSERVATIONS:
a. Since Twitter and Facebook are two different companies, they will have two different scripts running their tools. Using the Facebook debugger and Twitter card validator will preview two different kinds of previews in a particular link. The image will be the same, but in Facebook, it will prioritize your link's TITLE. If it is long it will also consume the section where the description should be placed, making your link preview to contain just your website main URL, and the title. And,

b. for Twitter, you will also gain different preview. If your link's title is long, it will cut it and will insert the first line of sentence inside your post or page. And your website's link is located at the bottom.

Whatever the preview is, it is up to you now to make the necessary changes before posting any links coming from your website on Facebook or Twitter. You now have the tools to do it.

If you have something to share or ask regarding this post, leave a comment below. Thank you!