Common Questions On How To Use Links In The Post Editor

Changes to Facebook Groups Publishing

Facebook unexpectedly decided to remove Groups API access, preventing any third-party tools, including SmarterQueue, from interacting with your Facebook Groups. After April 22nd, 2024, SmarterQueue will no longer be able to publish directly to groups you manage. You can still schedule posts for these groups, but will receive email notifications for easy manual posting instead. You may also wish to consider transitioning to a Facebook Page for better engagement.

SmarterQueue has lots of automatic features to save you time when working with links 🤓

Please take a moment to digest this article to feel super confident when using links in your posts 💪

How To Add, Edit, Or Troubleshoot Links?

1. How do I add a link to my post?

Adding a link to your post is very easy. All you need to do is to type or paste the link into the post text.

2. I added a link to my post text, but it's showing up as [[link]].

This is placeholder text to represent where the link will appear within your post text and will be replaced with the actual link when you save the post.

You can see in the Preview Pane (on the right of the screen) what the link will look like.

3. How do I edit the link in my post?

Please do not edit the link directly in the post! Instead, click the red 'Remove Link' button, and type or paste the new link into the post text.

4. Why is the link missing from my post text?

If you are posting to Twitter or Instagram and the link is missing from your post text, then the [[link]] placeholder was removed before the post was saved.

When posting to Twitter or Instagram, make sure that the placeholder is added and kept in the post text, as you continue editing and saving.

For Facebook, Pinterest, and LinkedIn you can remove this from the Post before saving it.

5. Can I remove the link from the post text once I’ve attached it?

For Twitter and Instagram, you have to keep the link inside your post text.

For Facebook and LinkedIn posts, the link can be removed only if the post doesn’t contain any images. If you’ve added images to the post, you will also need to keep the link.

If you have removed the link from the post text or edited it manually, you will get a warning when you save the post, and an option to re-add the correct link.

6. Why is the link being removed from the post text when I didn't remove it?

LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook will remove your link from the post text automatically if you've added it at the very end of your caption and choose to display a link preview. This will happen the exact same way when posting natively on these platforms too.

To avoid the removal on LinkedIn, SmarterQueue will add a space after your link if it is anywhere in the post text.

For Twitter and Facebook, you’ll need to add additional text or special characters after the link to keep it from being removed. The workaround we use for LinkedIn does not work for these two platforms, but something like a full stop or hashtag will work.

7. How will the link look when published?

When posting a link, a preview (image + title + description) will be shown. This preview of how the final post should look is shown in the Preview Pane.

Bear in mind that Facebook and Twitter are responsible for this link preview, so, if it doesn’t look as expected when published, you would need to check that your website is configured correctly for link previews.

For Instagram, added links will be displayed as unactionable text, with no preview generated. Instagram requires an image to be added to every post.

8. I want to have a picture of the link added to the post.

People sometimes incorrectly refer to the Link Preview as a “picture” being added to the post.

There is a link preview (image + title + description) added to posts by Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn when they detect a link in the post.

When creating a Pinterest post with a link, you can choose an image from the link to be used as the main picture.

If you attach an image file to the post, it will replace the link preview and will not be actionable (pressing on it in the published post will not direct you to the website the link is for).

9. How do I change which image is used as the link preview?

For Facebook and Twitter, you cannot control which image is used in the link preview.

This is pre-defined by the website owner, in the meta tags of the linked page. If you do not like the preview image for that page, you can choose to attach an image instead, which will replace the link preview (including the title and description).

For Pinterest, you can change which image appears in the link preview:

Click on 'Link Settings' preview on the right, and scroll to the bottom
You will see a 'Link Preview' section with tabs for each social platform that you have selected
Clicking on the Pinterest tab will show you the current image chosen, with arrows at the top left
You can use the arrows to choose a different image from the link

You can also upload your own image to be used as the preview image for LinkedIn and Pinterest

10. How do I attach an image from the linked web page?

Once you’ve added a link to the post, click 'Add Media,' and there’ll be an option at the top to “Choose an Image from your link” – click this button, and you’ll see thumbnails of the images we found on the web page.

Click on an image to attach it to your post. This will prevent the Link Preview from appearing.

Adding a different image from another web page can be easily done by following the steps here.

11. Why aren't my links clickable on Instagram or TikTok?

Instagram and TikTok have specific settings in regards to links being shared on their platforms.

These settings prevent clickable links from being included in comments and posts themselves.

You can include one clickable link in your profile Bios.

12. Why can't I post a Facebook Event link to Facebook?

If you're trying to send a post to Facebook, containing a Facebook Event link, you may encounter some difficulties. This is because Facebook doesn't allow the scraping of Facebook links, such as Events when posting through third-party applications.

To make sure the post goes through, make sure to meet one or both of the following conditions:

Add an image to the post via the 'Media' section in the Post Editor;
Turn on Bitly click tracking to ensure that the link is shortened by Bitly.

13. Instead of posting a link, how can I hyperlink text inside of a social media post?

At the moment this isn't possible and is a limitation of social media platforms themselves. The good news is, links can post with link previews which are even more clickable and interactive!

14. What is a Redirect?

A URL redirect essentially takes your URL and points it to another. You can choose to use the 'Initial link' or the 'Final'.

If your link contains a redirect, you will see an option here asking, "Which link do you want to use?"

Select which one works best for you!

15. My text is being converted to a link - how do I post it as plain text?

Sometimes you may wish to post text that contains dots, but don't want it to be posted as a link (e.g. your business name may be a valid URL, like design.studio or ros.ie)

The Post Editor will automatically detect any text that is a valid domain, and convert it to a link. To prevent this, we recommend using a "fake dot" instead of a normal dot.

Here is an example of the fake dot for you to copy/paste into your post: www․test.com

This article provides more details.

16. How do Canonical URLs work on SmarterQueue?

As explained by Google itself, a canonical URL is the URL of the page that Google thinks is most representative out of a set of duplicates on your site (for example, a page with both a mobile and a desktop version). If you have multiple URLs for the same page (say example.com?dress=1234 and example.com/dresses/1234), Google chooses one as canonical, if you haven't set it up yourself.

When sharing canonical URLs via SmarterQueue, you might notice different links being used between the Smarterque mobile app and the SmarterQueue desktop dashboard - this is because Google chooses the optimal version for the best user experience, which will differ between desktop and mobile.

That said, no matter which link is used, they all should point to the same source/website.

Note: If by any chance you notice that a link you're using is replaced automatically by a canonical URL that points to a different source/website, it could be that the initial URL was incorrectly set up. If you own the website in question, you (or your webmaster) can look into why the canonical URL is set to point to another article.

If you absolutely want to use a specific URL for your post instead of having it replaced with the canonical URL, simply create the post as you would, adding the URL. When it's automatically replaced, copy the one you want to use from the top of your browser, come back to the Post Editor, select "Edit" next to the link, and replace it with the one you prefer.

How To Use Bitly For Shortening Links?

1. I want to use Bitly for click-tracking and/or shorten my link

Make sure you have a Bitly account connected, and your Settings have Link Tracking turned on.

You can add one or more Bitly accounts from the Profiles page.

In the Post Editor, click on the Link Settings tab, and edit the Link Tracking setting.

Learn how Bitly works and discover how to update Bitly settings.

2. My post shows "no link tracking"

This is because Bitly link tracking is turned off in 'Link Tracking,' or else you’ve disabled link tracking in your 'Link Tracking Settings.'

3. Why does my Bitly link show up as http://bit.ly/placeholder in the Preview Pane?

This is because we only generate the correct Bitly link after you’ve saved the post.

You’ll see the post has a correct Bitly link once it’s in your Queue.

4. Do I have to make separate Bitly links for each profile?

We take care of all this for you! If you turn Bitly link tracking on, and create a link post for several profiles, each post will get a unique Bitly link, so that you get separate click stats for each profile.

You can also customize your Bitly settings for each profile.

5. Will Evergreen posts use the same Bitly link on every cycle?

No, as SmarterQueue automatically generates a unique Bitly link for each cycle, so that you get separate click stats for each cycle.

6. Do you offer Rebrandly integration?

Currently, we do not offer Rebrandly, but you can use Bitly for link shortening/tracking services.

If you're interested in making this happen, please visit our Feature Request Board to upvote Rebrandly functionality.

How To Use UTM Tracking Parameters With Links?

1. How do I add Google Analytics UTM tracking parameters to my link?

This should be turned on by default unless you’ve changed your settings. Click on the 'Link Settings' tab, and edit the Google Analytics section.

2. How do I customize the UTM parameters for each social profile?

This can be done automatically for you, by using our Template Tags:

Click on Link Settings
Then, Google Analytics
Next, Edit UTM Settings

We recommend using the _ACCOUNT_ tag wherever you want to have the name of the social profile, or the _NETWORK_ tag wherever you want the name of the social platform.

Learn how UTM parameters work.

3. My link has lots of text added after it, like this:

utm_source=_NETWORK_&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=_ACCOUNT_&utm_content=_CATEGORY_

These are Google Analytics UTM tracking parameters. They help improve your Google Analytics, so you can see how your website visitors found your website.

The capitalized words will be replaced with your own profiles/Categories, which you can see in the Preview.

If you don’t want them in your link, you can turn UTM off from the 'Link Settings' tab; or you can use Bitly to shorten the link into something prettier.