Today I want to share a Facebook tip that I’m sure many ProBlogger readers will already know, but which I am sure some have not heard about. Every single time I share it, I get “wow, I never knew that!” comments.
It’s all to do with how Facebook lets you customise your status updates when sharing links on your Facebook page.
OK – so here’s what happens when you add a link into the status update on your Facebook page before you hit ‘post’.
You can see Facebook has found an image that it thinks that you should use, has pulled in the page title and put it as the title under the picture and has taken the first couple of lines to put under that as a description of the post.
Of course you can change the image by hitting the little arrows in the top left of the image to show other options Facebook pulls in or use the ‘upload image’ to add a completely new image.
Most people know how to change images but some don’t know you can also change the title and description of the post. It’s simply a matter of clicking the title or description area.
Here’s what happens when you click the title just under the image:
Click the title and you now have an editable field that lets you change the title. In the case of links from dPS, I usually delete the name of the site so that only the post title remains.
Sometimes however I will try a different title that I think might be more shareable on Facebook or shorten longer titles so they don’t go over two lines.
The same thing can be done with the description area under the title. Click anywhere on that paragraph of words and an editable field opens up like this:
Again – you can put anything you like in here. This is particularly helpful when your first line is useful for the post but isn’t really descriptive of what the post is or if you want to use the description to boost curiosity of your Facebook followers.
I know many of you already use these features but like I said – many seem to have missed the ability to use them so I thought it might be a good tip to share.
Nice tip! Tried it – works really well on FB. Thanks..
Hi Darren,
Do ya know I’ve been marketing on FB for 5 years and missed this trick? I knew how to change the preview image via arrow, but the title and body edit, totally new to it. Thanks so much.
I’m learning on FB and especially Google Plus a little editing, presentation and adding a personal, stylized touch inspires people to read your blogs and click through. This is one such example.
Customizing is the way to go. I’ve also noted longer, more in depth status updates which drill down a bit more get some serious pop. Have you noted the same pattern?
Thanks again for the helpful share. Tweeting.
Ryan
That’s right Ryan.
This is a new tip for me too :)
Hmm, I knew about the images and the description, but I can’t say that I knew it was possible to change the title. I just haven’t been that big on using it since it sucks for interacting as a page (aside from the limited reach without purchasing the booster). No matter how big or small, there’s always something to be learned when visiting the site. Thanks Darren!
Great post Darren! As a matter of fact, sharing posts to specific groups using a beautiful graphic is what I do myself, seems to grab attention longer. And yes, your method for long links versus short links in a FB post worked wonders for better CTR.
Whoa! I actually never knew that the title & description areas are editable too! Thanks for this handy tip Darren.
Hey Darren,
These two facebook tricks are great. It’s great to change your image, title and discription for every time you share we post with your readers. It also helps to drive more traffic and user engagement.
Thank you for this great idea… :)
Thanks for this tips Darren. These two facebook tricks are really great.
Hi,
Do you really think facebook best and easy, My favorite google plus and other google cloud service maybe questions human why facebook high popularity , promation or good joob or other select one
Thanks
Thank you for this idea!
WOW! Never realized we can edit the Title & description in facebook. Thanks for reminding the handy tip.
Using the yoast plugin straight from your blog you can change the spiel for fb as well.. Which you probably already know :)
I find all three of these invaluable when I’m sharing posts from other sites — many don’t have things set up to have a good image, title or description and so I have to create them.
Two more tips — if you set a manual excerpt for the post (at least in most WordPress themes), FB will use that as the description. And once the image/title/description appears in the status, you can delete that URL from the text area at the top. Makes it look a lot nicer!
Once FB has pulled the info from your link, you can delete the link from your status box to make a cleaner post.
Thanks for sharing these tips again. Never heard them, will be using them.
Loved the tips you mentioned.I’m surely gonna to give a try to them.
Thanks for sharing.
Hi Darren
Like some of your other comments I knew that you could change the image that it brought through. However did not know that you could alter the title or description. As you have pointed out sometimes the opening verse of the blog is not necessary the best paragraph to catch attention on facebook it will be a great help to be able to edit it.
Many thanks for taking the time to explain this
Cheers
Elain
Great tips, Darren! I keep forgetting to use them, particularly when I’m in a hurry to share one of your great posts on my page :) Thanks for the nice visuals as well!
I share link status daily on my facebook page but never thought that I can also edit the title and description also.. Thanks for the information…
Nice tips. I never heard them before. I’d like to use this technique in my Facebook page.
Thanks for sharing this good tips.
Thanks. I am using FB in this manner only to promote my product.
Hey Darren,
This two Facebook tricks are awesome. I was know about the change of image but we can also change the title and description that really new for me. I had tried this and it works.
Thanks Darren for sharing such an amazing tricks.
It’s nice idea to customise any facebook updates. I listened it first time, i also tried it on facebook. It work well. I didn’t know that title and discription of facebook updates are editable and changeble. Thanks for sharing these tips Darren.
Great tutorial about facebook and it’s update. Most blogger still does’t know the right way to how to do this. Every time when i try to customise the update it show me error and now every thing is fine. Overall nice helpful article
I had no idea that you could change the name of the title like that, I guess I need to use social media more then I might have found out about this a lot sooner than I did.
Really nice tip i never did this sometimes its get very bad that it include that ugly image with url. Now i could do this thanks
WordPress SEO by Yoast is a great plugin to set the Facebook share text and image when making a new post, this way the custom text carries over when people share your article themselves.
When I click change image and put a new image with the correct dimensions and share, the image it shares is only a thumbnail size.
Does anyone else have this problem with fb making the images small?
Yes I am one of the people reading this and saying thank you I did not know that.
I enjoyed this article about making a successful Facebook Post. This is the most effective way to know about Facebook Post success with the right content.
I enjoyed this article about making a successful Facebook Post. This is the most effective way to know about Facebook Post success with the right content.
Whoa…. awesome tips! Didn’t know we could upload another image. Looks like this may be able to increase CTR.
Has to try this one
Darren, how many times max. we allow to change the image? Waiting your reply. thanks.