From blogs to third-party articles, you can’t overestimate the importance of social media for distributing and promoting that content. With Social Media Management, posting links to your social media channels is easy, customizable and trackable.

You can create posts for Facebook, X (Twitter), and LinkedIn that contain a clickable preview card of your shared link. Creating a link post is as easy as adding your link in the Publish editor. But the options don't end there, as you can further customize your content with a custom thumbnail, UTM parameters, or a Call-To-Action button. This article covers all tools available when creating the perfect link post.

Creating a link post

Link posts feature a link preview card that is added based on the link being shared. In contrast, Instagram allows you to add links to your posts too but does not generate a link preview based on them. Thus, the link post type is not available for Instagram.

Facebook, X (Twitter), and LinkedIn do support link previews in various ways. Creating a link post in Social Media Management follows the same general steps for those networks:

1. In the Publish module, click Create Post in the top left.
2. Choose the network and channels you want to publish your link post to.

   Note:

   Currently, it is only possible to create a post on one network at a time. However, you can select multiple channels on the network to publish your post to.

3. Add your link to the text box in the Publish Editor.

   With Facebook, X (Twitter), and LinkedIn, the link metadata is loaded automatically beneath the text box. The Post Preview in the center shows how the link preview will look once your post is published.

   Note:

   If possible, always use a full URL instead of shortened or deep links. Your URLs can be shortened automatically by Social Media Management using our built-in URL shortener and UTM parameters can be added to your post links using tracking templates you can create using our Campaign Tracking tool.

4. Consider any advanced options such as a Call-to-Action button, UTM tracking, or customized metadata. All available options are described below in this article.
5. You can remove the link from the post text box and add your preferred post copy to it.
6. Once you're happy with your post, click the Publish, Schedule, or Send for Approval button.

Creating a link carousel post

Facebook link carousel posts are a great way to grab people's attention while fitting more content into a smaller space. They are built up of individual link preview cards chained together. Think of sharing a story through a few different links, or simply use the same link with a few distinguishing images and CTA buttons.

The process for creating a Facebook link carousel post is similar to creating a normal link post:

1. In the Publish module, click Create Post in the top left.
2. Choose Facebook as the network and select the channel(s) where you would like to publish your link carousel post.
3. Add a first link to the text box in the Publish Editor. The first link preview card will appear underneath the text box.
4. Click the Make Carousel Post button to add another link preview card.
5. Add up to ten links using the Add Link option and adjust their metadata to your wishes.
6. Consider any advanced options such as a Call-to-Action button or UTM tracking.
7. You can remove the initial link from the post text box and add your preferred post copy to it.
8. Once you're happy with your post, click the Publish, Schedule, or Send for Approval button.

How are link previews created?

When sharing a link, a link preview card gets compiled from Open Graph properties on your website. These snippets of code provide the crawlers of all social networks with information about your website. For example, they can provide data on the title of your page, the type of content on it, and an image that best represents the content.

When you create a link post, the link preview card is automatically generated by the social networks from the metadata your webpage provides. Each network might represent the data differently, depending on the design of their link preview cards.

Example of a Facebook link post preview: Example of a LinkedIn link post preview:

While creating a post in Social Media Management, we will always show an accurate preview of what your posts will look like once published. Should the link preview card include any undesirable metadata, there's a high likelihood that the shared website would need optimization. You can always check the exact metadata that each network can find for your link through the following tools:

• Facebook object debugger
• LinkedIn sharing debugger
• X (Twitter) card validator

Simply paste the link you'd like to share in one of the debuggers above and you'll get an overview of the data that the network can gather, including warnings for any missing items.

If you're looking to optimize your website for social sharing to any network, we recommend this Facebook article as a good place to start.

Editing link previews

When creating a link post, you can customize the link preview for LinkedIn and, under certain conditions, also for Facebook. The customization options include adding a custom thumbnail, changing the page title, or the description.

Enabling link preview editing for Facebook

Facebook restricts how links can be edited to prevent the spread of fake news. When you post a single link, Facebook will only allow you to edit the preview if the website is owned by your business (however, you can always edit carousel/multi-link previews).

In Social Media Management, the same rules apply. Before you can edit the preview of single link post, you will first need to visit Facebook and prove that you own the domain. You can follow the steps that Facebook has provided. Please bear in mind that you will need to have access to your website's hosting environment as well as Admin access to your Facebook Business Manager.

Once you've successfully proved that you own a domain on Facebook, you don't need to take any further steps in Social Media Management. You can automatically begin editing link previews of any links shared from that domain.

Editing a link preview while creating a post

Follow these steps to edit a link preview for a claimed Facebook domain or a LinkedIn post:

1. Create a standard link post as described earlier in this article.
2. After adding a link to your post, the link metadata is loaded automatically underneath the text box. You can edit the title and description.
3. Hover over the preview thumbnail image and click Upload to add your own link preview image. The recommended file type and properties can be found in our media attachments guide.
4. Review the new link card in the Preview. Once you're happy with your post, click the Publish, Schedule, or Send for Approval button.

URL shortening and tracking templates

The links you share can be shortened automatically by Social Media Management to create a more attractive URL. You can also have Social Media Management apply a UTM parameters template to your link before it is shortened. These parameters can help you track the effectiveness of your campaigns in a tool such as Google Analytics.

Please refer to our dedicated articles on Vanity URLs and Tracking Templates for more information on how to set these features up in Social Media Management.

While creating a link post, there's an option right underneath the text box to shorten the URL that's in your post text. We recommend checking the URL shortening checkbox when posting to networks that don't support link preview cards, since your links will remain visible in the post text.

Clicking the Advanced button will give you options to customize the shortened URL key and apply a tracking template.

Call-to-action buttons for Facebook posts

Adding a call-to-action (CTA) button to a Facebook post is a must to drive traffic to your website. These take the form of a clickable button in the bottom right of a link preview card. When clicked, they direct to the respective link address.

You can add the following call-to-action buttons to your Facebook posts in Social Media Management:

• Book Now
• Download
• Learn More
• Shop Now
• Sign Up
• Watch More
• Send Message

To add a call-to-action button, create a link post as described above in this article. After adding a link, choose your preferred CTA button text from the dropdown menu in the link preview editor.