I shipped branded link previews because one sentence broke my heart

A photographer in our early group told me she stopped sharing her booking link in Facebook groups because it looked "sketchy." Her words.

When her link unfurled, it showed a generic preview, our platform name, a default image, nothing that said her. People in those groups didn't know what they were clicking into. She was losing warm leads before they ever landed on her page.

That sentence sat with me for two weeks.

So I shipped branded link previews. Now when a coach, photographer, therapist, or consultant shares their booking link anywhere, a text, an email, a Facebook group post, a LinkedIn DM, it unfurls as their business. Their name. Their cover photo. Their brand.

Not ours.

This matters most for independent professionals who live and die by trust signals in informal channels. A therapist sharing her link in a local parenting group. A nutritionist DMing a potential client on Instagram. A consultant dropping his link in a Slack community. The link is often the first impression, and until now it was lying about who they were.

It took me longer than I'd like to admit to prioritize this. I kept treating it as cosmetic. It isn't. It's a trust feature.

Next up: I'm looking at whether the same logic applies to email signatures and whether we need to do anything specific there to make the preview reliable across clients.