How To Create A Short Url For Facebook Pages

7 ways to post better links on Facebook

Posting links to Facebook is fairly easy, but there are tricks and tips to making the most of these commonly posted updates.

Every Facebook Page and audience is different and relates differently to different types of content. It's worth taking the time to find out what sort of content works best for your community.

How to post links to Facebook Links are widely used by individuals and Pages to share content. Whether its your own content or someone elses, sharing valuable resources/articles/videos is a great way to add value to your Facebook Page for your community. So, how can you make your links stand out from the crowd?

The basics

'To post a link, simply paste it into your text update and Facebook will automatically generate a link preview. The preview includes:

Title
Introductory text (usually the first paragraph or so of the article)
Selection of thumbnails to choose from

Here's what a general link might look like before we start optimising it:

How to post a link to Facebook

Now, let's look at how we can make it look and work better for us!

1) Tell them what it's about

Nothing's worse than a link posted without an explanation about why it was posted. Make sure you say something useful about the link before posting it. For example:

Say why it matters
Ask a question
Give a brief summary

2) Remove unnecessary URLs

When posting a link, you can remove the URL once Facebook works out the link preview. As most URLs are fairly long, it's good practice to take remove it from your text to make your posts look nicer.

3) Choose a good thumbnail

Often pages you link to have a number of images included on the page. Facebook will find associated images and allow you to choose which image to use. Click the left/right arrows to choose the best image.

4) Edit the title and description AND thumbnail

Before posting the link, Facebook allows you to update the title of the link and the description. This is handy if you're looking for a more engaging title or what to highlight a part of the article in particular (e.g. a quote, statistics etc). Also think about adding another call to action in the description to increase the chance of people interacting with your link.

Here's what our final link looks like just before we post it:

How to post links on Facebook

It's important to note that when the link shows in someone's newsfeed, you only get 5 lines of text (including the URL). As a rule of thumb, try and keep your title to 1 line, giving you more description text. There may be cases where you want to have a 2 line headline (e.g. a date for an event)

Here's our post in the newsfeed with a single-line title:

How to post links on Facebook

Here's another link using 2-lines for the title, using the second line for the event date and location:

How to post links to Facebook

*UPDATE* You can also upload a custom thumbnail to your links. If you don't have an appropriate image on the page you're linking to, you should now see an option to 'upload image.'

5) Track your links (advanced)

If you want to take links to the next level, you can be more specific with your URL tracking. This is handy if you want to measure the performance of individual links. Here's how:

Use a custom URL shortener (e.g. bit.ly or HootSuite)
You can use URL shortener services such as bit.ly and HootSuite (ow.ly and ht.ly) to track individual URLs. Many URL shortening services have their own reports built-in, giving you extra insight into the performance of your links.

Note: the downside of this is that when the link appears on Facebook, it shows the shortened service URL and not the original URL. If you're concerned about people not clicking on it because of the shortned URL, you can look into using a custom short URL too.

Use a UTM Parameters for Google Analytics
If you're using Google Analytics to monitor your website traffic, you can add a bit of extra text to the end of your link's URL to allow Google Analytics to get more specific. KISSmetrics has a good overview of how to use UTM Parameters.

Visit KISSmetrics: How To Use UTM Parameters In Google Analytics 5

6) Optimise your content with Facebook's Open Graph (advanced)

While Facebook is pretty good at automatically finding the title, description and thumbnails of the content you're linking to, it's also helpful thinking about what shows up when people post your content. With this in mind, you may want to go back and optimise your content (e.g. blog posts/case studies/videos) for Facebook.

You can also use Facebook's Open Graph tags to alter these further with a bit of coding ninjitsu. XLDStudios has a good overview with links to more info.

Visit XLDStudios: Add Facebook Preview Image, Title and Description with the Open Graph Protocol

7) Use pictures instead of links

If you want to try something different, you can use pictures with a link in the description rather than posting a link by itself. See the example of a photo post with a link on the right.

The benefit of this are:

Photos/images take up a lot more real-estate on the newsfeed, drawing more attention
Photos/images can increase your engagement
Photos/images allow greater customising

For a full run down on how you can use images on Facebook better – including points on using images instead of links, have a read of our article "How to make posting images on Facebook work for you."

Facebook and links

Finally, the most engaging content comes down to how well you understand your community and what content you post accordingly. Mix up the types of content you post, try YouTube videos, your own blog posts, articles from other sites you find useful but always post with your community in mind - what dothey care about?