What Are Social Media Meta Tags?
Social media meta tags are special HTML elements that control how your content appears when shared on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and others. These tags provide structured metadata about your webpage, allowing social networks to display rich previews with titles, descriptions, and images.
Why Are They Important?
Properly implemented meta tags can significantly improve your click-through rates from social media by:
- Ensuring your content displays with an attractive image
- Providing a compelling title and description
- Making your links stand out in crowded social feeds
- Increasing engagement and shares
Key Meta Tag Types
Open Graph (Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest)
The Open Graph protocol, originally created by Facebook, is now widely adopted by most social platforms. Key tags include:
<meta property="og:title" content="Your Page Title" />
<meta property="og:description" content="Your page description" />
<meta property="og:image" content="https://example.com/image.jpg" />
<meta property="og:url" content="https://example.com/page-url" />
<meta property="og:type" content="website" />
Twitter Cards
Twitter uses its own meta tags for card displays. The most common types are summary cards (with small image) and summary_large_image cards:
<meta name="twitter:card" content="summary_large_image" />
<meta name="twitter:site" content="@yourhandle" />
<meta name="twitter:title" content="Your Page Title" />
<meta name="twitter:description" content="Your page description" />
<meta name="twitter:image" content="https://example.com/image.jpg" />
Best Practices
- Image Size: Use images with a 1.91:1 aspect ratio (1200×630 pixels) for optimal display
- Title Length: Keep titles under 60 characters to avoid truncation
- Description Length: Aim for 150-160 characters for descriptions
- Image Format: Use JPEG or PNG formats with good compression
- Validation: Always test your tags using platform validators
Common Mistakes to Avoid
- Using different titles/descriptions for Open Graph and Twitter (can lead to inconsistent displays)
- Blocking social media crawlers with your robots.txt file
- Using non-absolute URLs for images
- Forgetting to update cached versions of your page in social platforms
- Using low-quality or irrelevant images
Advanced Techniques
For more control over your social media presence:
- Use
og:video
tags for video content previews - Implement
article:published_time
for news articles - Add
og:locale
for multilingual sites - Consider
product
tags for e-commerce items