Why this matters
When someone shares a LinkForty short link in Slack, WhatsApp, Twitter, LinkedIn, or anywhere else that unfurls URLs, the receiving platform fetches the page and renders a preview card from its Open Graph tags. Without configured previews, that card was just the raw URL — no image, no context, no signal of brand trust. Shares looked like spam.
Social Share Preview lets you decide exactly what that card looks like for every link your team creates.
What you can configure
Each preview has three pieces:
- Image — the visual that anchors the card. Recommended size is 1200×630 px (the standard Open Graph aspect ratio).
- Title — the headline shown above the image. 255 characters max.
- Description — supporting copy. 500 characters max.
Drop a PNG or JPG (up to 5 MB) into the dashboard's Social Share Preview page, fill in the title and description, and save. That's it — every link rendered from your organization will pick up the new card the next time a scraper fetches it.
Two layers: org default + per-template override
Most teams set up an organization default once: a logo or brand image, the company name as title, a one-liner description. Every link inherits it automatically.
For campaign-specific links, the per-template override lets you swap in a different card. A spring sale template can use the campaign artwork; a product launch template can use the product hero shot. When a link is generated from a template that has its own preview, the template card takes priority over the org default.
If neither is configured, the link's individual OG fields (set during link creation) fall back, and finally the link's plain title and description. The system is designed so something useful renders at every layer.
How it works under the hood
When a social platform crawls one of your short links, LinkForty's redirect server detects the scraper by User-Agent (Facebook, Slack, Twitter, LinkedIn, Discord, WhatsApp, Pinterest, Skype, Telegram, Bluesky, and more) and serves an HTML response with the configured Open Graph and Twitter Card meta tags. Human visitors continue to get the normal redirect — they never see the preview HTML.
A few details worth knowing:
- Image delivery is direct from object storage. Uploaded images go to S3 (with a resized 400×210 thumbnail for fast unfurls). The OG meta tags point straight at the public CDN URL — no extra request through your application server.
- Cached for performance. Link lookups and preview configuration are cached in Redis with a 5-minute TTL, so scraper traffic doesn't hammer the database. The normal redirect path stays just as fast as before.
- No impact on regular redirects. The scraper-detection hook runs only when the User-Agent matches a known bot. Normal traffic flows through the redirect server untouched.
Setup checklist
- Open the Social Share Preview page in your dashboard (sidebar → Social Share Preview).
- Upload your organization's default image (1200×630 px recommended).
- Set a title and description that work for your most common share scenarios.
- (Optional) Switch to the Per Template tab to configure overrides for specific campaign templates.
- Share a link in Slack or post it to Twitter to verify the card renders correctly.
Getting started
Social Share Preview is available on all plans for organization admins. Image storage requires S3 to be configured on your deployment — self-hosted users will see a clear "S3 not configured" message until those credentials are set.
For the full configuration walkthrough, see the Social Share Preview docs.