schema
Social card
The visual preview generated when a URL is shared on social platforms — driven by og:image + og:title.
Definition
A social card (or share card) is the visual preview platforms render when a URL is shared. Each platform reads slightly different meta tags: Twitter uses twitter:card + twitter:image; LinkedIn + Facebook + Discord use Open Graph (og:image, og:title, og:description); Slack uses Open Graph + some custom extensions. A well-designed social card is the difference between a shared link that gets clicked and one that gets ignored.
Example
A blog post share on LinkedIn shows og:image (1200×630), og:title (bold), og:description (small text). Total visual real estate = ~3x a plain text post.How to optimize
Build a per-page programmatic OG image route (Next.js: opengraph-image.tsx). Test on each platform separately. Avoid hiding text behind decorative imagery — many platforms crop.