Social sharing configuration

Social sharing buttons are placed in various locations throughout the Good Grants platform to encourage social sharing of your program. By default, five social sharing icons are displayed wherever social sharing buttons are placed.

Which social networks/tools and their order are not fixed but depend on the individual's social media behaviour. The expected most relevant options being automatically displayed, in order to maximise the likelihood of engagement.

If you'd like to control which social networks/tools are displayed and their order, you can do so by creating a free account with Shareaholic (more on this below).

Activate/deactivate social sharing

1. In the Manage workspace, go to Settings > Communications > Social
2. Select the Activate social sharing buttons checkbox
3. Add a default sharing message, share title, description, and share image
4. Save

To deactivate social sharing, deselect the Activate social sharing buttons checkbox before saving.

Configuration options explained

Default sharing message

The default sharing message is passed to social networks that support seeding a message that the user can otherwise write or edit themselves. It's a good idea to write something that you would like your users to say when sharing a message about your program. Most commonly used by Twitter and Tumblr.

Share title

A share title is passed to social networks that support a title with the share. Most commonly used by Facebook, LinkedIn, and email.

Description

The description is passed to social networks that support a description with the share. This also doubles as your program's SEO description in search results. This is most commonly used by Facebook, Tumblr, and search engines.

Share image

A share image is passed to social networks that support an image share. Facebook recommends images of 1200 x 630 pixels (at least) for best display on high-resolution devices. However, bear in mind that the image will be resized down to 470 x 246 pixels for preview display in Facebook news feeds and 506 x 253 pixels in Twitter feeds. Don't upload an image less than 200 x 200 pixels as they may not be used by social networks. Most commonly used by Facebook, LinkedIn and Tumblr.

Site ID and App ID

Connecting your program to Shareaholic is optional. If you do choose to utilise Shareaholic for social analytics you can put your IDs here to track statistics and manage the buttons displayed.

What is used by social networks?

• Facebook will use the Share title, Description, and Image
• LinkedIn will use the Share title and Image
• Twitter will use the Default sharing message
• Tumblr will use the Default sharing message, Description, and Image.
• Email will use the Share title

Here's an example of what the result looks like in a Facebook newsfeed when a Good Grants program is shared:

Why is my old sharing configuring still showing?

If you've just updated your program's sharing configuration to include a new image, title, or description, it may take some time before those changes are displayed on social networks. This delay is typically caused by cacheing within that social network platform and not by your Good Grants account. To resolve this, you can ask for some platforms to scrub your existing information and look for new details to share using the links below.  

• Facebook Debugger
• LinkedIn Post Inspector
• Twitter Card Validator

Using Shareaholic

In order to utilise Shareaholic to customise your program's sharing buttons and more, you'll need to create an account and acquire the required Site and App IDs. Here's how:

Create a Shareaholic account and add your site

1. If you haven't already, create a free account with Shareaholic
2. Open the My Sites drop-down and click Add site
   
   
3. Input your program's URL and click Continue to next step
4. Select the HTML / Other CMS option and then Continue to next step
5. Navigate back to your Shareaholic homepage, www.shareaholic.com/sites/, and click on your site

Find the Site ID and input it into Good Grants

1. In the 'Site Settings' menu on the left side of the page, click Copy Site Id
2. Open your Good Grants account and go to Settings > Communications > Social in the Manage workspace
3. Paste your ID into the Site ID field

Locate the App ID and input it into Good Grants

1. If you've navigated away from Shareaholic, return to your account and click on Apps in the left menu
2. Scroll to the 'Share Buttons' module and click New in-page App
   
3. In the window that appears, configure the share buttons that will display in your Good Grants account. This includes
   
   • Theme: how your social sharing icons appear
   • Position: as a block or wrapped
   • Size: normal, mini, or rectangular 
   • Counter: whether share counts display next to your social icons and their orientation
   • Alignment: left, centre, or right-aligned
   • Custom icon colours
   • Select buttons: customise which share icons display
4. Click Next step when finished
5. If desired, add rules, analytics, etc
6. To secure the App ID, open the 'Code' tab of the configuration
   
7. Open your Good Grants account and go to Settings > Communications > Social
8. Input the App ID
9. Click Save when finished