5 Things You Need to Know About Facebook Link Posts
By now, you know that you can use Facebook’s free tool to preview your links to see how many likes, shares, and comments they’ve garnered previously. This article is will help you learn about how powerful link posts are and what you should focus on to optimize them. Read on for 5 things you need to know about Facebook Link Posts.
1. How Effective Facebook Link Posts Are
As digital marketers, when posting to social media, our primary objective is to drive traffic to a website. Often, you’ll have the choice between use a photo post (see left post above) or a link post (see right). In this example, the photo post happened to reach about 4.25x more people than the link post, and received about 15x more comments, likes, and shares. However, the link post still garnered 36% more clicks to our website.
While the aforementioned example was random, in one of most recent audits, we looked at 147 posts with links in the past 180 days from October. Here are the results:
| Posts | Click-Through Rate | Shares, Likes, and Comments |
| 43 Photo Posts | .66% | 34.38 |
| 111 Link Posts | 2.41% | 94.32 |
| Difference | 365.15% | 274.35% |
Link-style posts are a fantastic way to get more users to your website.
2. What’s Most Important in Facebook Link Posts
In order of importance when it comes to Facebook link posts:
- Image
- Link Headline
- Post Caption
- Link description
- Website Display Link
The image will grab their attention and the headline will get them interested in clicking, while the link description and caption will provide them with more information. The display link really comes into play only if it doesn’t jive with the rest of the post. For example, if you’re talking about surfing, you don’t want your display link to end with “/skiing”.
3. You Need a Good Image
All too often, we see link posts that have very small pictures or without any pictures at all (see an example with both above). The majority of users will scroll right past a link post without a thumbnail. Consequently, the most significant aspect of a link-style posts is its picture – it’s even more important than your caption.
You’ll want to ensure it should displays well and is relevant to the topic of the link in order to get the best results. Check out the bright, vibrant colors and contrast in the photo above. Use them to catch users’ attention and draw their gaze to your headline!
4. Headlines Are What Make People Click
Let’s be fair, you either clicked that link or really wanted to. The headline is what makes or breaks a link post. Located right under the link post’s picture, it’s big and bold, and where users look once the image grabs their attention.
People click links because their curiosity is piqued. This should be your goal when crafting link headlines. Avoid broad, general copy and stick to interesting and specific wording.
5. Don’t Prioritize Post Captions and Link Descriptions
Captions add context to the link preview, and aren’t the primary way users are drawn in. It can tip the scales, but it won’t grab attention. In a world were the average mobile user spends 1.7s on each Facebook post, most simply won’t take the time to read your caption after seeing the headline.
In terms of captions, we recommend making them as short & sweet as possible, as only the first 3 lines will appear before “See More” cuts the rest off. Try using emojis to convey the main theme of the landing page or mentioning 1 or 2 your favorite parts of link.
Link descriptions rarely appear on mobile unless the link’s headline is very short. As 96% of Facebook users accessed the site on mobile as of January 2019, you don’t really need to spend too much time on this aspect. If it does appear, use it to provide more information.
Wondering how to change your link preview? The short answer is that it can only be done by editing the landing page on your website. Check out our blog on what Facebook knows about your links to learn more. Feel free to reach out to us if you have any questions on social media marketing or any other topic, and subscribe to our newsletter to get more helpful tips!
What Does Facebook Know About the Links You Share?
Have you ever wanted to see how well links performed in the past on Facebook? Have you ever posted a link to Facebook and the picture is too small or the text is completely different? Facebook offers a great, free tool that lets you preview a link and tells you what the platforms knows about the link.
Read on to find out what Facebook knows about the links you share:
The Tool
Facebook itself has written that “people often prefer to click on links that are displayed in the link format (which appears when you paste a link while drafting a post), rather than links that are buried in photo captions”. This means that links are one of the most important ways you’re sharing content on Facebook, and, therefore, knowing exactly what Facebook knows about your link is crucial. Luckily, they provide a tool that lets you know exactly what they know about your link: the Sharing Debugger.
What the Tool Shows You
The Preview
It will show you exactly what the link will look like on desktop before you post it.
Likes, Shares, and Comments on Facebook
That’s right. Facebook tracks how many likes, shares, and comments every link gets and stores it for future reference. One of the many reasons you’ll find this tool is useful!
Other Info About Your Facebook Links
The Facebook Sharing Debugger will also pull the URL, title, description, type, tags, site name, author, publisher, and locale from the link, as well as the last time it was updated.
How it Works
The tool identifies information about a link in a very similar to the way that looking at someone’s driver’s license can tell you their age, eye color, and height. When you copy the URL into the Sharing Debugger, it will pull data. Instead of a card, Facebook, along with every other social media site, uses code included in websites called “OG Meta Tags”.
For instance, just like if you have brown eyes, your driver’s license might say “EYES BRN”, if the title of your blog is “How to Natively Schedule Posts on Instagram”, the code simply will say “og:title” and “How to Natively Schedule Posts on Instagram”.
Why is this Significant?
On face value alone, the information the tool shows you is extremely valuable. You can adjust to make sure your link is set up for success and it allows you to see what picture will be used and how it will look. If you see that it has very little engagement in the past, it’s worth refreshing the photo, title, and description – and possibly the content, too!
How to Use this Information
Ensure the Information is Correct
The first thing to do is ensure the information is correct. Ask yourself:
- Is the picture what it should be?
- Is it an image that will perform well?
- Are both the “title” and “description” accurate?
- Is the “type” appropriate?
- If it’s a blog, make sure it says “article”.
- Do the tags make sense?
- For instance, if it’s a winter activities landing page, you want to make sure “summer fun” isn’t tagged.
- Is the site name right?
- Does the locale say “en_us”?
- This means that it’s in English, and its country of origin is the United States.
Optimization
The next step is optimizing the Facebook link. If the picture is too small or generic, swap it out! Make sure the title, or headline, is interesting and actionable. Next month, we’ll dive deeper into the subject of optimizing your links.
How to Change Your Preview
The easiest way to change what your link preview looks like is to talk to your webmaster. However, you might be able to do it yourself, as most website platforms have “Featured Image”, “Title”, and other similar options in the editor.
Want to Do Some Coding?
However, if you’re able to add some code to the “header” section of a single page, Meta Tags is a tool that can be used to debug and generate the Open Graph code for any website. With Meta Tags, you can experiment and edit your content, then preview how your webpage will look on Google, Facebook, Twitter and other sites.
Conclusion
Link-type posts are the best way to drive traffic to your website from Facebook, and this tool gives you an insider look into the social media platform’s data so you can optimize your link for success. If you’re looking for new ways to stay updated on destination marketing, be sure to subscribe to our e-newsletter or follow us across social media at the links below!
Why Your Website Needs to Be Faster
We expect rapid results in our everyday lives. Nowadays, we have practically unlimited amounts of information at our fingertips. Consequently, if your site doesn’t load fast enough on mobile, users will go somewhere else. It’s that simple. But how fast, is “fast enough”? Read on to learn why your website needs to be faster:
What Load Time Looks Like
We slowed down our website’s load time to give a sense of how long 10 seconds is on the internet. If you were scrolling on Facebook and clicked a link, how long would you wait for it to load?
Case Studies on Site Speed
- The BBC found that for every additional second a page on their website takes to load, 10% of users leave.
- Google Think found that a 1s delay in page load times can affect mobile conversions by up to 20% on retail sites.
- Outdoor clothing company Dakine cut the load time of its pages by at least 48% and had mobile traffic increase by 31% and mobile revenue increase by 45%.
- When Pfizer made their sites’ load times 38% faster, their bounce rate decreased by 20%.
- A private telecom company, Telefónica improved load times for its mobile site by 70%, which helped increase click-through rate by 31%.
It’s impossible to be engaged by content that you can’t see.
Why It Matters
- 1 out of 2 users expect a page to load in less than 2 seconds.
- DoubleClick by Google discovered that 53% of visits are likely to be abandoned if pages take longer than 3 seconds to load.
At TwoSix Digital, we see tourism websites with at least 50% of web visits coming from mobile and, typically, it accounts for about 60-70% of traffic. This number is growing every year. This is why it’s imperative to ensure that your website is quick enough to keep users interested.
Above, you can watch that same video with drop-off statistics based on load times.
How to Test Your Site
Each web page on your website is different. Each has its own pictures, information, and features. A great way to see the load times of pages on your website is with Google Analytics’ site speed tool. Google also offers an easy “Test My Site” tool that analyzes different URLs and reports on mobile speed. If you want to see exactly where your page is slowing down, then check out WebPageTest,.
How Fast Should Your Website Be?
If a slow mobile experience drives customers away, a fast mobile experience can help attract and keep them.
think with Google
We recommend keeping your page load times to under 3 seconds, and try to have at least one thing visible on your screen, such as a menu or image within the 1st second.
How Do I Make My Website Faster?
The first step is to contact your developer and tell them your benchmarks – specifically for mobile. While desktop speed is important, mobile site speed is paramount. Compressing images and text, along with employing a technique called “lazy loading“, are good places to start. If you want to go a bit more in depth, check out these recommendations.
Today, site speed is one of the important aspects of a website, and comes into play before content is ever seen. Consequently, it will always affect how effective your digital marketing will be, and should be considered a priority. If you’re looking for new ways to stay updated on destination marketing, be sure to subscribe to our e-newsletter or follow us across social media at the links below!
How to Find Great User-Generated Content
(And what to do when you find it!)
User-Generated Content (UGC) is a huge part of tourism marketing. People are constantly posting images during their travels, which provides great opportunities for DMOs to repost this content on their own channels to promote and inspire tourism. In this blog, you’ll learn the best ways to find great UGC on Instagram and what to do when you find it.
Tagged Images
Some users make it super simple by tagging you in their photos, so the first place to start is looking at the images you’re tagged in! Navigate to the “tagged photos” portion in your Instagram profile to see what you’ve been tagged in. A best practice is to check-in on this a few times a week (at least) to make sure that you’re not missing out on any impressive content.
Check Your Hashtag For User-Generated Content
Did you know that you can search your hashtag on Instagram to see all of the posts that have used it? You can do this by either navigating to the search bar and typing it in or by clicking your hashtag that’s in your bio. This will take you to a screen displaying both popular and recent posts using your hashtag!
Location Tags
Using a location tag is a method for users to post about the places they visit during their trip and a great way to know for certain that an image was taken at a specific destination. To find a specific location tag, simply navigate to the search bar and start typing in the location. You should see the location pop up in the search results. If you see a location tagged that you want to look at in your feed, you can also click on the tag above the image and it will navigate you to a page displaying both popular and recent posts at that location. Remember, don’t just check city tags, but also local attractions, restaurants, and more!
What to Do When You Find User-Generated Content
Now that you’ve found the perfect image for your feed, it’s time to save the user-generated content to your collection and get approval from the user to actually use the photo in your feed. Follow these steps to make sure that you’re asking for permission in the right way:
- Save the image to your collection so you can easily refer back to it when necessary. See below how to add it to your collection:
2. Like the Image!
3. Comment on the image using verbiage something like this:
“Great photo! With your permission, we’d love to use this in our blog. Let us know if you have any concerns.”
4. Once you receive a response, you can reply and thank them for giving you permission!
Posting the User-Generated Content with Credit
Finally, make sure that when you post the image on your own social feeds, you tag the user in the image, or give them photo credit in the comments. If you’re putting it in your blog, be sure to give them image credit. If you are embedding the photo directly to your website, it’ll automatically give credit where credit is due.
Following this quick approach is an integral step in giving your brand a voice. You also show your visitors appreciation for posting their images of your location. Integrating user-generated content in your blogs and social media feeds will allow future visitors to see others experiencing your destination and can inspire them to do so as well. For more new and exciting ways to use digital marketing to enhance your destination marketing organization, be sure to subscribe to our e-newsletter and follow us across social media at the links below.
How to Create an Effective Partner Listing
Partners are a large part of destination functionality, as they help build the destination experience. As a destination marketing organization, it’s important to provide informative, accessible and detailed partner pages on your website. This will not only help your consumer feel well-informed before they arrive but also during their visit when they’re looking for ways to experience your area. Here are the basic elements to help you create an effective digital tool for your visitors:
1. Basic Information
Start it off simple by including all necessary, basic information that will aid visitors in learning about the partner:
- Name
- Address – be sure to include cities if you work with several different cities as one organization
- Phone Number
- Hours
- The partner’s website
- The partner’s social media accounts
2. About Section / Summary
Be sure to include a small summary of what type of attraction, hotel, restaurant it is. For example: is it a ‘family friendly’ or an adult bar-style type of restaurant? These small details will help your visitors learn about the partner without having to leave your site! Here are some examples of what to include in your summary:
- Hotel Amenities
- Type of cuisine
- Type of environment
- Ticket cost or entrance fee
- Special dietary options on the menu
3. Maps and Directions
Knowing where to go and how to get there is key for visitors. By putting a clickable map on each partner page along and/or a “Get Directions” function that goes to a mapping website, you will give them the easiest access to your partners. Is the place hard to find? Is parking difficult? Including these helpful pieces of information in the partner listing will help your visitors find their way!
4. Media
Include high-quality images of the product in the partner listing. For example:
Hotels: Include images of rooms, the lobby, any accommodations or special amenities
Restaurants: Include images of top food items, drinks and overall aesthetic
Attraction: Include images of key elements of the attraction and any amenities
5. Related Content
Integrate any related blog content on the partner pages. This could include things like “Top 10 Places to Eat in Grand Rapids” on your restaurant pages or popular trip itineraries like “48 hours in Dallas” on attraction or hotel pages. This is a great way to get more traffic on your blog posts and to continue to give your visitors more tools to improve their visit!
6. Reviews
Integrating reviews is a great way to keep a user on your website rather than heading to TripAdvisor or Yelp. Plus, it will help them better make the decision on where they want to eat, play or stay without having to leave your site. Check out this examples:
7. Your Visitor’s Guide, E-newsletter & Social Profiles
Finally, it’s essential to make sure to add important consumer content like your social media profiles, a link to subscribe to your e-newsletter and a link to download your destination guide somewhere on every partner page, such as in your footer. Including these on your partner page is a great way to give your visitors every possible resource to keep them informed.
Effective partner pages are important destination-drivers, as they help build accessibility for your visitors. When you are putting together a partner page, always remember that your end goal should be to create an optimal digital space for your visitors to easily navigate and learn more about your partners.
For more ways to stay up-to-date on the latest digital marketing & tourism trends, be sure to follow us across social media and subscribe to our newsletter.
4 Easy Ways to Get to Know your Digital Audience
A digital marketing strategy is primarily driven by the wants and needs of your audience. Knowing both what they want to see and what they need in order to create a conversion can help build a base for your digital strategy. Audiences are always changing, so it’s imperative to frequently check in and learn about them. Here are 4 simple ways to get to know your digital audience:
1. Investigate Google Analytics
You can learn several things about your audience by looking through your Google Analytics account. Check out these different metrics:
- Demographics: age, gender
and location - Interests: Affinity Category, In-Market Segment
- Behavior: Top pages by Sessions on your site, Engagement via Average Session Duration & Bounce Rate, and Page scroll depth
- Specifics: Browser use, Network, and type of Device
- Acquisition: Source/Medium, Referrals, and Social
- Site Searches: What your audience is looking for on your site
2. Perform Keyword Search
Performing a keyword search is a great way to help you discover what sorts of niches your audiences are interested in your destination. There are several tools that you can use to help generate keywords associated with your site.
Try out the Ubersuggest tool to help you learn about what keywords to implement into your niche content landing pages. This will help you not only understand what users are looking for when searching keywords related to your destination, but also help you come up with content ideas for the long run.
3. Check out Social Media Insights
You can also learn about your digital audience by looking through your social media accounts’ audience insights. Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter all vary on the data that they are able to provide for users:
- Instagram Business: top locations, age range, gender
- Facebook Business: age, demographics, location, actions of people on the page, audience insights
- Twitter Insights: audience interests, consumer buying styles, typical demographics (age, gender, location), and top performing posts
4. Send out a Survey
If you’re unsure of what kind of content to produce, try sending out a simple survey to gain a better insight on what kind of content your audience wants to see from you. Check out this example of a survey to help you gain more insights on what your customers want:
Finally, always remember that your audience can and will change over time. Don’t be afraid to take time to intentionally learn about their habits, demographics, social media usage, and other metrics. No matter what your findings, it will help you gain a better perspective on what they want from your organization.
For more tips and tricks on how to master your digital marketing strategy, be sure to subscribe to our e-newsletter and follow us across social media.