In case you haven’t already noticed, we recently added a pretty neat tool that shows up in the WordPress Post Editor after you install our WordPress Social Sharing Plugin – Social Warfare. We call it the Social Optimizer and we think it’s kind of awesome! ????
To start using it now, simply click on the Social Warfare logo in the top right corner of the WordPress post editor.
This tool provides you with a real-time “score” as you fill out your social media images, titles, and descriptions. It will examine things like the size and aspect ratio of your images, the character count, word count, and hashtag count of titles and descriptions, and so much more.
When people share your posts on social media, they are not going to take the time to optimize the images, titles and descriptions. You need to have those optimized long before they visit your site and have them ready to pre-load into the share dialogue boxes.
With Social Warfare, you gain maximum control over how your users are sharing your content, and that means that your readers will be sharing content that is optimized for maximum visibility and click-throughs on social media platforms.
You’ve always been able to do this with our plugin, but now, with the built-in Social Optimizer, you can do this more effectively and more efficiently than ever before.
This allows you to create far more effective social media fields in much less time.
Better. Faster. Stronger.
So how does the Social Optimizer work?
For years, the Social Warfare plugin has had little text descriptions next to each field with recommendations. Now, however, there is a visual interface that will alert you when each field is bad, good or excellent using red, amber and green lights. It also includes incredibly simple instructions on how to improve your score.
Here are a few of the key things that it will look for as it grades these fields.
Throughout these, you’ll hear us mention points. Most of the points are invisible and run in the background. You’ll only see the color codes and the total score at the top.
Red means less than 60%
Amber means less than 80%
Green means better than 80%
You might notice that some fields have two standards for the same measurement. For example, the Open Graph Image has an absolute minimum width of 200px and a recommended minimum width of 1,200px. The absolute minimum means that it will literally not even work below that size. The recommended minimum is where it will actually look excellent to the users.
Open Graph Image
- Is it a 1.9:1 image ratio? You’ll receive points as a percentage of how close it is to that ideal aspect ratio.
- Is the image the recommended minimum of 1,200px by 628px?
- Is the image larger than the absolute minimum of 200px in width and height?
Open Graph Title
- Is the title fewer than the recommended maximum of 55 characters?
- Is the title fewer than the absolute maximum of 95 characters?
- How close is the title to the recommended 5 words?
Open Graph Description
- Is the description shorter than the recommended maximum of 60 characters?
- Is the description shorter than the absolute maximum of 200 characters?
Custom Tweet
- Is the tweet between the recommended length of 71 and 100 characters?
- Does your tweet contain the ideal number of 2 hashtags?
- Is the tweet shorter than the absolute maximum of 280 characters?
Pinterest Image
- How close is the image to the ideal aspect ratio of 3:2?
- Is the image the recommended minimum size of 735px by 1,102px?
- Is the image the absolute minimum size of 238px by 356px?
Pinterest Description
- Is the Pinterest description between the recommended length of 100 – 200 characters?
- Does the Pinterest description have between 5 and 15 hashtags?
- Is the description shorter than the absolute maximum of 500 characters?
The Twitter Card image, title, and description use the same basic calculations as the Open Graph image, title, and description.
Conclusion
Let’s be very clear: some posts perform much better on social media than others. This is almost always because those shares on social media are highly optimized. They have large, eye-catching images. They have titles and descriptions that call people to action.
Your readers are not going to do that leg work for you. You have to do it, but with the Social Optimizer, you can now do it twice as well in half the time.
Are you ready to win the battle for attention on social media?