---
canonical: "https://www.jsolly.com/blog/social-media-share-links-open-graph/"
title: "Show the Right Image in LinkedIn Posts With the Open Graph Protocol"
description: "Make your posts look beautiful on LinkedIn by using the Open Graph Protocol. Learn how to use the protocol and test it with social media post inspectors."
author: "John Solly"
published: "2022-03-25T04:53:54.000Z"
updated: "2026-09-07T14:25:05.464Z"
---

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# Show the Right Image in LinkedIn Posts With the Open Graph Protocol

![A thumbs up icon](https://d1d7p8ufhgz4ld.cloudfront.net/media/post_metaimgs/thumbs_up.png)

When a link is shared on LinkedIn, they analyze the HTML content to figure out what image they show in the preview. If an image can’t be found, you end up with a random one from your site, or an ugly default 🤮

It’s easy adding these properties to make your posts beautiful. According to this [Stack Overflow Post](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/19632323/default-website-image-for-social-sharing/46139611#46139611), many social media sites use the [Open Graph Protocol](https://ogp.me/#datetime)  to search metadata and determine things like what image should be shown in the preview.

To kick the tires on your site, copy/paste a URL to one of your pages into the [LinkedIn Post Inspector](https://www.linkedin.com/post-inspector/inspect/https:%2F%2Fblogthedata.com%2Fpost%2Fgoogle-lighthouse-perfect-score%2F) or the [Facebook Post Inspector](https://developers.facebook.com/tools/debug/?q=https%3A%2F%2Fblogthedata.com%2Fpost%2Fgoogle-lighthouse-perfect-score%2F). At first nothing picked up from my site, but after implementing this issue, it’s looking a LOT better! I can now choose what image shows up in the preview when posting to LinkedIn!

March 25, 2022 in [Web Dev](https://www.jsolly.com/blog/category/web-dev/)

Updated September 7, 2026