We use Hootsuite to manage all our social networks, but lately we've been unable to generate previews for the links we shrink as posts.

Hootsuite are doing their best to identify the problem but, despite on-going investigations by their development team into the issue, it is persisting.

Seeing is believing

It has got to the point now where every link shrunk returns a generic “click this link” preview.

An option here is to use a photo on the post to override this or to manually change the headline, tease and photo. But this is time consuming and come July, this option will be obsolete.

Hootsuite reports that as of July 17, Facebook will deprecate the ability to customise link previews for all Facebook’s API integration partners in an effort to reduce misrepresentation of link content.

Stop Gap

So the only other work-around with this and the issue of Hootsuite’s previews not generating is not shrinking the link and adding it to the message.

But then you are left with an unshrunk URL and miss out on embedding tracking presets in the URL, one of the reasons we use Hootsuite.

And majority of the time these links have to be run through Facebook debugger’s first before a preview will generate.

Direct Action

The only other option is taking the post and link to Facebook directly, which has been done more times that we care to.

The issue with working directly with Facebook is we have so many people accessing our social networks, Hootsuite’s dashboard makes it easy to see what has been posted and what is scheduled to avoid any double ups or over posting.

These are the main reasons we use Hootsuite but it is getting to the point now where we are left with no choice but to bypass the dashboard and go straight to Facebook.

How do you manage your social networks? Do you use a third party application or do you just post to Facebook directly? Have you experienced any issues?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Alexia Purcell is the social media editor for News Corp Australia’s News Regional Media. She is an internationally recognised social media expert, journalist, university lecturer and speaker. You can connect with Alexia on Facebook at facebook.com/alexiajpurcell.