Facebook does not allow embed code from any outside platform to work inside of Facebook. They drive people to upload content directly to Facebook. Due to these restrictions, Spotlightr videos are shareable via a link inside of Facebook.

We use our Watch page for this function.

This means that you can post a link to your Watch page which will create a thumbnail image that will click-thru to your Watch page. So when a viewer clicks on your Spotlightr post (image) he is automatically redirected to your Watch Page.

This article will describe the image and headline and description that is used when sharing that Watch page link ONLY and how to change it for social media sharing. If you are sharing a URL to a page from your own website on social media that has a Spotlightr video embedded, then Facebook and other social media will use different rules on which image is used and what other info is added to the shared link. We are not covering that in this article. Again, this article will describe only how it works when sharing your Watch page.

By default Facebook will define open graph properties to use for the image, title, and description of the link you are sharing. It will use the thumbnail image by default and use the video title for both the title and description OG properties.

The image, title, and description can all be changed by specifying what to use for the open graph meta data.

As just mentioned the video thumbnail is used by default. a look at the ways this can be configured.

When you add a video to Spotlightr, we will add a thumbnail to your video by default by using the frame at the first second of your video. This will then by default be used as the image when you share a video on Facebook.

To see what is being used and to change it navigate to the Player tab and click Thumbnail:

We have a dedicated article for instructions on changing your thumbnail image.

If you change your thumbnail and go to Facebook and share your Watch page, it should use this newly created thumbnail.

If Facebook is still using the old thumbnail and not the new one you created, follow these directions:

Go to the Facebook debugger page: https://developers.facebook.com/tools/debug/

Enter the URL of you Watch page and click the Debug button:

You will see your old thumbnail there. Now, click on the Scrape Again button:

Now you should see your new thumbnail:

Now when I paste my Watch page into Facebook, it will show my newly created thumbnail:

As you can see from the image above, Facebook is using the video title "Surf's Up" for the title and description of the share. To edit that you will need to follow the next set of direction to edit the open graph meta data to specify the image (if you want to use something other than the thumbnail), the title and the description.

Here you will edit the open graph meta data that social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and Linked in use for sharing links.

To edit the image that is used when you share your Watch page on Facebook (the og image), as well as the title (og title) and description (og description) of your link, just navigate to Settings >> Social Sharing & SEO Metadata:

To change your title, description, and image used for the link just edit the fields:

You can edit just the title and description and your thumbnail will still be used. Or instead of the thumbnail you can also edit the image by adding a link to it, uploading it, or using an image from your image history.

Title - By default this is the title of the video. This is text that shows in large font underneath your image. This can be changed.

Description - This is the text that shows underneath your title. Again the default used is the title of the video.

Image - The image that displays when you share your link. The default used is the video thumbnail. Leave this field blank to continue using it or edit the image by adding a link to it, uploading it, or using an image from your image history.

Here's an example of how it works from start to finish.

I've uploaded a video for surfing information. When I share the Watch Page here is how it looks without changing any settings:

The image used is the thumbnail and the title and description are both using the video title.

Now if I edit the image, title and description to this:

This is how it will now look on Facebook:

One last important thing to mention is the URL Link for your Watch Page. If you don't want "yoursubdomain.cdn.spotlightr.com" in the URL of your Watch pages, you can configure a custom domain. Please check this doc for instructions on creating a Theme with a custom domain.