user - Julian Knight's Personal Website

Open Graph Tags – You need them for personal branding

If you have a website for personal branding, you should know about Open Graph meta tags, also known as OG tags.

Open Graph tags are snippets of code that control how your content looks on social media. Facebook introduced them in 2010 to encourage more content sharing by users, and many prominent social media platforms, including LinkedIn and X (Twitter), have since adopted them.

Whenever you share on social media articles found on the web that you think will be of value and interest to your audience, chances are the post will look eye-catching, with an image accompanied by a title and a brief description.

In addition to the content looking eye-catching, articles with OG tags make the source look authoritative.

Eye-catching + Authoritative = Shareability. This is why you should use OG tags for the content you create in your area of expertise.

Open Graph tags also help with SEO!

These four Open Graphs will give you a solid foundation for sharing content from your website or blog on social media:

og:image

This is an image from the article, blog post, or page you want to be shared on social media – the most important of the OG tag to get right so your content looks eye-catching when shared.

Syntax

Best Practices

Use custom images that are unique to each article or post.
Whenever possible, use images you’ve created. If you can’t do that, ensure you have the correct permissions to use outside photos.
You can utilize your social media headshot or website logo if you need relevant images for your content.
Higher resolution is always better, but choose an image with detail you are prepared to sacrifice when seen shrunken and viewed on a mobile device. I recommend having one main item in a picture with much color and contrast.

og:title

This is the title of the article, blog post, or page you want to be shared on social media.

Syntax

Best Practices

Focus on accuracy and value.
You can use the exact title of your article, post, or page – please don’t change or try to enhance it.
Keep them short to prevent overflow – a good rule of thumb is up to 60 characters and 40 or fewer works best on mobile.
Shorter titles also shorten the content’s URL, which, as you’ll see below, also improves shareability.

og:url

This is the URL of the article, blog post, or page you want to be shared on social media.

Syntax

Best Practices

Use a canonical URL, which, per Google, is “the URL of the best representative page from a group of duplicate pages.”
Choose a URL structure that includes keywords from your title (see above).
Separate words with hyphens
Shorter and simpler is better.

og:type

This is the type of content you are sharing. For example, since this is a blog post

Syntax

Best Practices

Keep it Simple – initially, use “article” for articles and blog posts. Use “website” for everything else.

In future posts, I’ll discuss some of the optional OG tags, but if you want to start getting more advanced by yourself, follow The Open Graph Protocol for the most up-to-date standards to follow.

Thanks for reading, and feel free to share!

My Palm Pilot from the 1990s – It couldn’t pivot to save its life

If you are reading this LinkedIn post on your smartphone and plan to post on LinkedIn, X, Instagram, or TikTok – you can thank my Palm Pilot.

💽 Palm was founded in 1992, writing software for a new thing called hand-held Personal Digital Assistants – PDAs.
💽 Palm created the first-ever operating system for PDAs powering products made by Casio and Apple.
💽 Palm developed the first-ever synchronization software for HP and handwriting recognition software for Apple’s Newton MessagePad.

In 1995, Palm took everything they learned about software development and released their PDA, the Palm Pilot📱

The Palm Pilot was revolutionary.
It was simple, fun to use, and half the price of Apple.
It was the first PDA synchronized with desktop devices and applications.

🚢 Palm was a juggernaut, releasing a new version of the Palm Pilot every year, each more powerful and innovative than its predecessor.
🚢 Palm went from 31,000 employees to over 100,000, most of whom were software developers.

Then things went wrong – spectacularly wrong.

>> In 2003, Palm spun off its software division and turned to partnerships, starting with licensing the Windows mobile operating system.
>> In 2006, Palm, in partnership with Verizon and Microsoft, released the Treo, one of the first successful smartphones in the world.

Although the Treo was a hit – the horse was out of the barn.

>> In June 2007, Palm partnered with a private equity firm.
>> In 2009, Palm released their second smartphone in partnership with Sprint.
>> In 2010, Hewlett Packard acquired Palm.
>> HP shut down Palm in 2011 – RIP.

Many people think the iPhone killed Palm.
I believe the iPhone put the nails in the coffin.

Palm killed itself in 2003 when it stopped being a software company and started being a hardware company trying to forge strategic partnerships.

The key to successful pivots in business and careers is to keep one foot planted in what you’ve learned, know, and have expertise while placing your other foot in the potential future.
It’s all about iterations.

In 2003, Palm stopped keeping its foot planted firmly in what it knew, software development, placed both feet in the potential future, and failed spectacularly.

Don’t be like Palm.

Oswald the Lucky Rabbit – Walt Disney’s career pivots

>> 1920 – While employed doing cut-out animation as his day job, Walt Disney read books about cell animation, bought a camera, and became a self-taught cell animator.
>> 1921 – Walt gets laid off but uses his new self-taught skill to form Laugh-O-Gram Studio.
<< 1923 – Walt signs a lousy distribution deal, and Laugh-O-Gram goes bankrupt; he moves to Hollywood and gets an animation job for a film company.
>> 1926 – Walt’s employer wanted an animated character named Oswald the Lucky Rabbit created, so he formed Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio and worked as a subcontractor.
<< Early 1927 – The market for animated shorts in theaters was saturated with animals, so Oswald had a tough time standing out and making money.
<< Later, in 1927 – Walt redesigned Oswald into the drawing in this post, but his contract was terminated before he could show it to anyone.
>> Early 1928: Walt repurposes the unseen sketches of Oswald into a mouse and debuts Mickey Mouse in test screenings of “Plane Crazy, ” but no distributors picked it up.
>> Later, in 1928, after seeing “The Jazz Singer, ” Walt decided to make history with synchronized sound and released “Steamboard Willie,” starring Mickey Mouse, the first car, which was an enormous success.
>> Early 1929 – “Plane Crazy” is re-released with synchronized sound and is a successful follow-up.
>> Later, in 1929, Mickey Mouse Clubs started forming in theaters around the country, and Walt got into the merchandising business.
^^ 1993 – Ryan Gosling, Brittany Spears, and Justin Timberlake debut as Mousekateers (not part of Walt Disney’s career pivot – adding to the timeline so I can level up my pop culture knowledge).
🗓️ January 1st, 2024: The copyright expires on the silent version of Steamboat Willie, and an early version of one of the most recognizable and valuable pieces of intellectual property in history enters the public domain.

By 1927, Walt Disney could have made a career change and become a stockbroker, which likely wouldn’t have panned out very well two years later. Instead, he pivoted by taking several steps while keeping one foot planted in the entertainment industry. Leveraging his experiences (Laugh-O-Gram, Oswald, and Plane Crazy 1.0) while adding new skills (cell animation and musical direction) enabled Walt Disney to pivot quickly and become successful while navigating uncertainty.