=== 4Site ShareThumb - Branded Social Preview OG Image Plugin ===

Contributors: 4sitestudios
Tags: og image, social media image, link preview, post preview, facebook
Requires at least: 5.9
Tested up to: 6.4.2
Stable tag: 1.1.2
Requires PHP: 7.4
License: GPLv2
License URI: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html
Free social share images for unlimited pages using customizable OG image templates. Upgrade to optimize with AI and get sharing analytics.

== Description ==

Select one of our optimized post preview image themes and then customize it to create high-performing social share images. ShareThumb grabs the title and the featured image from the post and you define everything else:

* Layout (Theme)
* Font
* Font Color
* Logo
* Icon
* Background Color
* Accent Color
* Secondary Color

When links to your website are shared on iMessage, Facebook, LinkedIn or any number of platforms, ShareThumb generates the custom social cards that you configured. 

You can set up our social media image generator to create social cards for every page on your website, or you can specify the specific post types that you want to generate the social media preview images for. You can also create custom og:images for individual posts. 

Here’s a one-minute video about our plugin:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf6CSJB9-rQ


== Screenshots ==

1. Configure and style your share thumbs across all the pages on your site.

2. Override the site-wide styles to configure your share thumbs for an individual post.

3. Register to manage all your share thumbs, across all your sites, in one convenient dashboard.


== Installation ==

1. Upload the plugin folder to your /wp-content/plugins/ folder.

1. Go to the **Plugins** page and activate the plugin.

-- Simple Configuration -- 

In order to use ShareThumb, you simply install the plugin, select your theme from a dropdown, and you're done! Your link preview images will appear whenever someone shares links to your site on a platform like Twitter or Slack that supports open graph images.  It just takes five minutes to configure. You don’t need to register. There is no trial period. We won’t ask you for a credit card. And there is no limit to the number of share thumbs you can generate for your WordPress site. In fact there’s no limit to the number of sites you can use ShareThumb on.


== Why 4Site ShareThumb is Unique == 

ShareThumb uses a different methodology to generate your social share images than most of the other WordPress plugins. We create your link preview images on our app running on cloud servers. When someone shares a link to your post on Discord, that platform requests the open graph image from your site. Our plugin then redirects that request to our app, and our app provides the image to Discord. We store that og:image for the next time a request is made for it. Every 30 days, we check back in with your website to see if you’ve updated the title or the feature image of the post, and then we update the og image. 

This setup has a lot of benefits over serving them up social thumbnails directly from your WordPress website. It takes a lot of processing power to render these custom images. We carry that load for you. It also means that you can run ShareThumb on multiple sites and manage all your thumbs in one place. And you can create custom headlines for posts and override the feature image on your post with a thumbnail that you specifically optimize for sharing. 

We require that you register in order to access these features so we can verify your identity and your ownership of the websites. But registration is free, there’s no trial period, and we don’t ask for your credit card.

After registering and adding your API Key to the WordPress Plugin Settings, ShareThumb will automatically regenerate your thumbnail every time you update your post title or ShareThumb Settings.

Here’s a five-minute video that shows you how to register and verify ownership of your site. The process itself only takes a couple minutes. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkY5UrIOUYU


== Pro Features == 

After you register, you have the option to upgrade to a paid account. With our Pro plan, you can collect statistics on where your links are shared and how many times they are shared. This is information that is not available anywhere else - your site doesn’t collect this data and Google Analytics can’t collect it. 

You can take advantage of artificial intelligence to highlight power words in the post titles that appear superimposed over your image. We call these “smart thumbs”:)

Other features we will be rolling out soon include the ability to add AI-optimized headlines and AI-generated images that are custom made for your content and optimized to grab people’s attention. We also will be offering the ability to create your own custom thumbnail themes (templates). 


== Frequently Asked Questions ==

= Why is there a field for an “API key” and a “Domain Verification Code” on the ShareThumb settings page in Wordpress? =

You can ignore these fields and still use ShareThumb. But if you want to register your account with us, we require you to provide this information, so that when you create an account on [Sharethumb.io](https://sharethumb,io/ "4Site ShareThumb") in order to ensure that you are the administrator of your website (we don’t want to allow others to generate thumbs for your website. Once you create an account, you will be prompted to enter these values into your WordPress website.

= Can I create my own templates? =

We are working hard on that feature and hope to release it soon. Send us an email at support@4sitestudios.com if you would like to be notified when that feature is ready. 

= Who are you guys anyway? =

[4Site Studios](https://4sitestudios.com/ "4Site Studios") is a small web development agency located in Washington, DC. We’ve been around for 20 years, providing custom WordPress services, mostly to nonprofits. This is the first plugin that we’ve posted for the community (though we’ve built countless plugins for our clients’ sites). 


== Changelog ==

= 1.0 =

* Our first public release!

== Upgrade Notice ==

= 1.0 =

Start using 4Site ShareThumb today.


== For more information == 

Visit the [ShareThumb website](https://www.4sitestudios.com/products/sharethumb/).