When a page of the website is shared on social media such as Facebook, LinkedIn or X, an image appears with the shared link. General Settings has an option to choose the image that is shared by default when a page has no more specific image of its own.


These are the images the website looks for, in order of precedence:


  1. Specific image for a static page
  2. For member profile pages: the member's own Listing Social Meta Image, then the member's cover photo, logo or profile photo
  3. Post image or album photo (for posts like events, articles and coupons, the post's image or a video's thumbnail; for albums like photo albums, properties and classifieds, the album's first photo)
  4. The Social Media Shared Image of the page's SEO template
  5. Default Social Media Image
  6. Image from the Default Homepage Slideshow
  7. The homepage Hero Background Image (Settings > Design Settings > Homepage tab)
  8. Website Logo


The system searches down the list to see if each of those items exists. If #1 exists, it is used; if not, the system checks #2, and so on. Items #6 to #8 are used only when no Default Social Media Image has been set.


So the default social media image is used only when nothing more specific is available for that page. An SEO template's Social Media Shared Image is also a fallback: it never replaces a post's own image, a member's photo or logo, or an album photo. Setting it up is covered in "How To Edit The SEO For Social Media Sharing for SEO Templates".


Some example scenarios:


  • Sharing a profile page uses the member's own Listing Social Meta Image when one is set; otherwise it uses the member's profile photo or logo, depending on whether the listing is for an individual or a company
  • Sharing a coupon uses the image the member uploaded for that coupon
  • Sharing a property uses the first photo the member uploaded for that property
  • Sharing a post saved without an image uses the SEO template's Social Media Shared Image when the template has one, and otherwise continues down the list
  • Sharing a static page uses the image specified for that static page (or, if no image is specified for that page, continues down the list above until it finds an image that has been specified)


Set the Default Social Media Image

  1. Navigate to Settings > General Settings.
  2. Open the Brand Images tab.
  3. Under Default Social Media Image, click Replace Image (or Upload Image) and choose the image. 1200 x 1200px is recommended.
  4. Click Save Changes.


General Settings in the admin with Settings > General Settings, the Brand Images tab and the Default Social Media Image card highlighted.


Example

A member publishes a post without an image:


A front-end article page titled Planning a Community Cleanup Day that has no post image, highlighted.


The page's og:image tag, which social media platforms read to pick the shared image, points to the Default Social Media Image instead of leaving the share without an image:


An excerpt of that page's source with the og:image meta tag highlighted, pointing to the site's Default Social Media Image.


Finally, only if needed:


When testing which image is used for sharing on a social site such as Facebook, open the Facebook Sharing Debugger, enter the page URL and click Debug. Then click Scrape Again (or Fetch new information for a link that has not been shared before) so Facebook reads the latest version of the page instead of its cached copy.

Facebook's Sharing Debugger with the site's page URL entered and the Debug button highlighted.


Brilliant Directories websites do not allow Facebook's link-preview crawler (facebookexternalhit) by default, so a Facebook preview can come up blank or without the expected image even when the page's og:image tag is correct. Allowing the crawler is covered in "Allow the facebookexternalhit Bot in the Robots.txt File".