Sharing links on Facebook is one of the primary ways people use the social network. Instead of just showing the full URL, Facebook will pull data from the linked page to display a title, description, image, and domain name.
This "real estate" is extremely valuable and optimizing it can mean the difference between a few clicks and a few hundred. If someone shares a link to your content on Facebook, will other users know what your site is about? Are you doing enough to get a Facebook user to click through? Think of this shared link as an opportunity to drive a potential customer to your site.
Lately we did some experimenting with the Moontoast Distributed Store and how a shared link to a store appears on Facebook. By using Facebook's Open Graph protocol, we were able to dictate how the store looks when shared to Facebook. Breaking the shared link down into its components, we tinkered with things like image size, calls-to-action, and different forms of copy. What did we find? Athlon Sports' Custom Covers campaign is a great example of a successful shared link:
The Four Elements of a Shared Link
1. Title - The title of the linked page (or store in this case). Facebook pulls this from the "og:title" tag on the shared page. Instead of titling the store something generic, Athlon Sports used the title as a call to action to increase clicks to the store.
2. Description - A description of the linked page. Facebook pulls this from the "og:description" tag on the shared page. Athlon Sports used the description as a way to get potential customers interested in the product - "Passionate about college football? Learn how to get Vanderbilt Commodores on the cover of America's #1 Sports Preview magazine!"
3. Image - An image pulled from the linked page's "og:image" tag. The shared image is the first thing that will grab a Facebook user's attention, so finding the right type of image is crucial to success. Since the Moontoast Distributed Store can be opened inside the Facebook News Feed by clicking the PLAY button, Athlon Sports used an image of the promoted school's cover with a call-to-action to help potential customers know where to click.
4. Domain Name - The domain where the linked page resides. This is automatically generated by Facebook based on the shared link's URL and lets users know what site they are visiting when clicking a link.
What We've Learned
Compared to previous Distributed Stores that had default shared images and messages, we saw click-throughs increase 75-100% across all Moontoast client stores when shared to a Facebook Fan Page. Needless to say, giving our clients the ability to customize the title, message, and image specifically for sharing to their Facebook Fan Pages made a huge impact and drove even more qualified leads to their stores.