zShare Browser Extension

zShare Browser Extension

Think of your favorite social media channels and you'll realize content-sharing is up there as one of the top reasons why so many others love it too. For a brand, this spells a wide range of opportunities. With a social media management tool, your Brand can not only get a wider reach for content that you create, but also seamlessly curate good content from multiple sources. With Zoho Social's zShare plugin, you just have to follow a bunch of easy steps to curate content without any hassle.

With zShare, you can schedule and publish posts while browsing the internet, without even leaving your browser tab. Sharing interesting content that you discover is now as easy as one click.

Sharing Content with zShare

Want to pick and choose the content that you'd like to share from a webpage? Here's how you can use the zShare plugin to do that:

Sharing specific quotes, passages, lines

If there's a paragraph in a write-up that speaks to you, you can choose to share it with your audience without all the hassle of starting up Zoho Social or copy-pasting. Simply select a slice of text from any page and click on zShare plugin to instantly open up the Zoho Social Publishing window. Learn more about customizing text, hashtags, and mentions, for each social channel.

Sharing media

You can pick multiple images or a video from a page to share with your social media audience. Simply hover your cursor over an image that you like on any page. Click on the small zShare plugin button that appears below the image. The image will automatically open up the publishing window, which will upload the photo onto your publishing menu. Suggested images from the page will also appear at the bottom of your Publishing screen, for you to choose from. Learn more about customizing media posts for each social channel.

You can share a webpage or a blog you're browsing, by clicking on the zShare icon. If you're already logged on to Zoho Social, this will prompt the Zoho Social publishing window to open, along with the link preview of the content you're trying to share. You can then customize your content for each social channel and publish or schedule it for later. Learn more about customizing link previews for each social channel.

Follow these steps to share content with zShare

1. Install the zShare plugin on your browser— it's available for Google, Firefox, Safari, and Opera.

2. Click the zShare icon on the top right corner of your screen to summon your publishing window instantly with the preview of the content that you may have selected. In case you haven't selected any content, zShare will automatically create content based on the page title. In case you close the link preview to select images, you can always revert to the link preview by clicking Switch to Link preview from the Publishing window.

3. From the drop-down on the top right side of your publishing window, select the Brand for which you'd like to make the post.




4. You can publish instantly to all social media platforms that are connected to your Brand, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google My Business, and LinkedIn. To select the social channels which you'd like to post to, click on the + button next to the feather icon, and choose the social channels from the drop down box. To deselect a social channel from your publishing window, just hover your pointer over the channel's icon and click 

5. The content typed in the default tab is denoted by the  icon. The content over here will be automatically copied to all the social channels you've selected. To customize the content for each social channel, you can select a particular social icon next to the feather icon and make changes to the text, media, or link preview for a particular social channel.

6. If the content has been edited for a particular social channel, Zoho Social will indicate that by showing the label "Edited" right below the icon of the social channel.

7. After you have edited content for each social channel from the  default tab, you can still choose to recover the original content by clicking  from your Publishing window.

8. Click Publish to post to the channels you've selected from your Publishing window.



Scheduling Content using zShare:

You can schedule the post by selecting from among the Queue and Scheduling options available on the right hand side of the publishing window. While you can schedule content directly from zShare to all the social channels (for a Brand), you cannot customize the schedule for different social channels. The schedule that you select will be applied to all the channels that you choose to schedule the post on.

1. To schedule the post on a day of your choice, you can select a date and time from the scheduling calendar on your right.
2. You can choose to Repeat the Post once every week or month by checking the box.
3. Then, click Schedule.
4. To add the post to your Publishing Queue, select the Queue option from the Publishing window. The CustomQ slot you have set-up will be auto-selected for you.
5. Click Add to CustomQ.
6. To schedule your post at a date and time when your audience is most likely to engage, select a slot from the SmartQ suggestions, and click Add to SmartQ.

Customizing Content for Each Social Channel

Twitter needs crisp, snappy content that fits within 280 words, but Facebook needn't follow the same format. Every social network works differently and hence, it is crucial to understand the requirements of each of these networks and tailor your content accordingly. With Zoho Social's zShare browser extension, you can easily customize your content for each of your social channels from a single publishing window.

Customizing Text, Hashtags, and Mentions:

Text: To customize the text content for a social channel, click on its social icon and make changes as per the guidelines for that social channel. For example— You can compose a short text for Twitter (consisting of 280 characters) and a relatively longer text for LinkedIn or Facebook (consisting more than 280 characters) in one go.

Using hashtags and mentions: You can customize your tags, @mentions, and hashtags for each selected social channel in the publishing window. To do this, simply click the icon for the social channel, and make your edits inline, adding the hashtags or mentions that you'd like to add. Zoho Social supports tags, @mentions, and hashtags for Twitter profile, Facebook Page, Facebook Group, and LinkedIn Page only.

To share text content from the webpage directly, follow these steps:

1. Select the desired line or passage and click on the zShare plugin from your browser to open the Publishing window.
2. The text you have selected will appear on your New Post box.
3. To select another text, minimize your Publishing window by clicking 
4. Once you have selected the text from the webpage, it will be pasted on your Publishing window.
5. You can choose to customize the post for each social channel.
6. Review your post, and then click Post Now or Schedule your post.

Customizing Image Publishing

While posting images in posts that you create via zShare, you can choose to share different images on each social channel. To do this, click on a selected channel in the publishing window, and select the images you'd like to post to this social channel from the 'Suggested images' section of your publishing window.



Please note that multiple images can be added to Facebook Page, Facebook Group, Twitter Profile, and Instagram Profile.
You cannot attach more than one image on LinkedIn  due to its API restrictions.

To share images from the webpage directly, follow these steps:

1. Hover your pointer on the image you want to post.
2. Click on the zShare plugin button that appears below the image.
3. This image will directly appear on your New Post box.
4. To post another image, minimize your Publishing window by clicking 
5. Hover your pointer on the image and click the zShare button
6. The image will be uploaded directly on your Publishing window
7. You can choose to select different images from the Suggested Images to post to each social channel.
8. Review your post, and then click Post Now or Schedule your post.

Other images from the same page will also appear at the bottom of your publishing window as 'Suggested Images' for you to choose from. Multiple images can be added to Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. However, you cannot attach more than one image on LinkedIn due to it's API restrictions.
Thumbnail previews are automatically generated when you type/paste a link in the compose screen. These reflect how your audience would view your post if you share the same link natively from the social channel.

Facebook Link Preview
When you use zShare to share links to your Facebook feed, you will only see the images auto-filled from the feed to your zShare composer window. Facebook requires you to manually type content for posts shared. This is because Facebook restricts third-party apps such as Zoho Social from auto-filling content on your behalf. So, you'll have to type the copy that you'd like to share on your Facebook Pages and Groups.

On Dec 18, 2017 Facebook removed the ability to customize link attachments. That means, a thumbnail will be automatically set for the link, which you cannot edit. To customize the thumbnail image for links before you publish them to your Facebook channels, you'll first have to verify your domain on Facebook.

Twitter Link Preview
Due to Twitter's API restrictions, Zoho Social doesn't show thumbnail previews for Twitter in the Publishing window. However, your published post will have a thumbnail preview automatically generated from the link.

LinkedIn Link Preview
When the link you add to the Publishing window has multiple images, you can navigate and select a different thumbnail image by clicking the arrows on the link preview.

Link Previews are not generated for Instagram and Google My Business.

Feedback

We'd love to hear from you! To share your feedback with us Click  on the top bar of your zShare Publishing window and type away— this is will really help us understand and improve your experience on zShare! You can also drop in a mail to support@zohosocial.com or tweet to @ZohoSocial

    • Related Articles

    • zShare Browser Extension

      Think of your favorite social media channels and you'll realize content-sharing is up there as one of the top reasons why so many others love it too. For a brand, this spells a wide range of opportunities. With a social media management tool, your ...

    • Does my browser support zShare?

      zShare browser extension is currently compatible with the following browsers: Google Chrome Safari Mozilla Firefox Opera

    • Browser Extensions

      The browser extensions of Zoho Vault help you auto-fill passwords, automatically log in to websites and applications, add new passwords, and much more. These extensions help you with most of your password management operations, helping you work on ...

    • Can I disable the zShare button on images from other websites?

      Yes, you can hide the zShare button that appears on images. Follow these steps: 1) Right-click the zShrare extension from your browser, and select Options. 2) Disable the toggle to hide the zShare button on all images from other websites. When you ...

    • Can I share content directly from my browser?

      Yes, you can! With our browser extension, zShare, you can share content directly from your web browser, without having to switch between tabs. Once you've  downloaded and installed the zShare extension, you'll be able to see the zShare icon on the ...