What is Open Graph for Social Media
I’ve just had a question from someone on Linkedin asking about the benefits of using Open Graph. This question has resulted in me writing a blog post about what Open Graph is and how it may benefit your Social Media campaigns.
Using Opengraph is beneficial from the point of view that content is always king and many people share content on social media, whether it’s a good blog or a landing page on an eCommerce website.
Now no matter what you offer in terms of products or services using Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms have huge volumes of people on those platforms and would be crazy not to try and tap into that type of traffic.
Initially, it was Facebook that Opengraph was used for, but Twitter, Linkedin, Google Plus also recognise the tags from Open Graph. So it’s now in full flow and Open Graph is now a simple plugin that you will find on open source platforms like WordPress, Magento and many others. It will depend on the type of niche you are in, as to how effective the Social Media will be for your business.
There is no direct impact on SEO by using Opengraph if someone doesn’t use it it will not have a negative impact, just in case anyone out there thinks by doing this will help their SEO, as there are a few misconceptions that Open Graph will help conversions and people automatically think that just having it will make tons of sales. You still need to have something of value to sell, a good deal or something that people want in order for it to convert into a sale.
Having said this, if you have a full marketing campaign and you use social media to market your products it will give you more control on the links your sharing on these platforms which can then help conversions if you are doing your social media marketing properly.
This plugin allows the social platforms to be able to identify the following layout by using the appropriate Open Graph Tags:
“OG Image”, open graph will layout the image in a nice position
“OG Title” : It puts the title in Bold on social media platforms
“OG Description” : Shows the description of your product in normal text.
Using this plugin will allow you to show people on social media a much more structured post on your product or services. There are a number of other Open Graph Tags that can be used, the above would be the basic ones.
Some people don’t use Open Graph, they use Hootsuite etc. The drawback of Hootsuite is that posting stuff on it can sometimes show people no thumbnail image or an unformatted posting on social media.
What would you buy from on social media?
1. The nice format all laid out professionally?
OR
2. The messy layout, non-relevant image and the text all over the place.
The answer from most people will be the number 1 as it will clearly convert better.
Need help with your campaigns? Feel free to get in touch today to find out more about our plans and what consultancy offers we have!
Craig Campbell
I am a Glasgow based SEO expert who has been doing SEO for 22 years.
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