OMG, what is OGP? This article will help you understand what is OGP (the Open Graph protocol) when you need it, what it is used for, and, more importantly, why it matters for your Microsoft products such as SharePoint, Yammer, and Microsoft Teams.
What is OGP :
The Open Graph protocol is an internet protocol created by Facebook to standardize the use of metadata within a webpage to represent the content of a page, enabling it to become a rich object.
The markup generates, for example, the title, the description, and the image of a shared link on social networks. You can provide simple details such as the "title of a page" or as specific as the "duration of a video". What would be your latest post on Yammer, shared on Microsoft Teams without a thumbnail image, right? OGP is used on LinkedIn, Twitter, Yammer, etc. While many different technologies and schemas exist, the Open Graph protocol offers the ability to mark up some web contents to make them "social-sharing friendly," like the example below (a great title, a nice image, etc.).
Some facts about OGP :
- Inspired by the Dublin Core
Created in 2010 by Facebook.
Transitioned to the Open Web Foundation.
When do I need OGP :
For instance, when we create content, it is usually made with at least two goals in mind - to be viewed and shared. If you want it to be "shared" on any social network that utilizes rich previews (including Yammer or Teams internally), you will like that preview to be as fantastic as possible. So effectively, you will need to use "out of the box" or "custom coded" OGP for every web page you intend to share.
So what can you do :
- Always make sure OGP is part of your project requirements.
- Validate image and content before UAT.
- Establish an OGP test case before Go-Live.
- Test the "Home Page" and the "Inner Pages."
- Validate with the Business or Legal that the OGP content is a good match.
- Use the below resources.
Resources :
- The Open Graph protocol (ogp.me)
- Facebook OGP Webmasters Guide (facebook.com)
- Open Graph Debugger
- Card Validator | Twitter Developers
- Debugger - Facebook for Developers
As a developer working on Microsoft Teams, you might not always need to worry about OGP, but I believe there will be cases where acknowledging some of the above might put your team on the road to success. Please keep in mind that this article is only a starting point for the discussion thread; you might have other things to bring to the table that I am curious to discover. So please, feel free to comment and join the discussion below. Thanks