Controlling images on social media posts
Social media love images. So make sure you tell LinkedIn, Facebook and the others which one you want displayed when you share your WordPress Post with your followers!
When you share your carefully curated WordPress Post on Facebook, X or LinkedIn, the platform’s algorithm will look for an image to accompany it. If doesn’t find one in, it may place its own logo alongside your article. If your Post has several images, it will pick one at random, but not necessarily one you would have chosen yourself.
This can be immensely frustrating! So how do we control the images that social media publish alongside our own work?
Use your SEO plugin for controlling images on social media
An SEO plugin provides access to the hidden areas of webpages that a search engines use to rank your page, such as the Title and Description metagags. We cover this in our section on SEO and keyword placement.
SEO plugins go one further and allow you to control the exact image that appears on your social media alongside your WordPress post.
Most websites set up by Applegreen use the SEO plugin Yoast. So let’s get started with Yoast for controlling images on social media. We will be accessing Yoast’s functionality in two different locations.
Yoast Settings: allow social sharing
Head over to Yoast SEO > Settings in the left sidebar of your Dashboard:
In the Settings window, scroll down to the section called Social sharing:
Toggle on both Open Graph data and X card data buttons, which give Yoast permission to access your data and share it with the social media platform you have chosen. Open Graph applies to Facebook and LinkedIn.
In the next section we will show you how to set an image for your Post.
Choosing and setting the image for social sharing
This happens in the Yoast box of your Post editing screen, not in Yoast’s settings. This is the same box we use for keyword placement. Go to your Post list (All Posts), click on the Post you are going to share and scroll right to the bottom of the page, until you reach the Yoast box. You should already have your keywords for that Post positioned in the SEO section of that box.
Now choose the Social section by clicking on the tab labelled Social:
If you have Yoast’s free version, scroll past the Social Share Preview box which is a premium feature. Below it is the section labelled Social Image, and below that, an empty image box and a button labelled Select Image (slightly different from the screenshot above, where the image is already selected). The Select Image button takes you to the Media Library where you can either choose a previously uploaded image or upload a new one.
Under Social Title, we recommend choosing Insert Variable > Title. This ensures that your WordPress post’s title appears on the social media platform next to the image. The Social Description box requires just a couple of short sentences.
If you are posting on X, open the X Appearance box and do the same things there. You may need to play with the size and aspect ratio of the image. Some platforms like square but some, Line LinkedIn, like a landscape format. LinkedIn currently recommend a width of 1200px and height of 628.
That’s it. You are now ready to wow your social media followers with your new article.
I hope this Post of mine has helped you control your images when sharing WordPress Post on social media. If it has, please share widely – on your social platforms!
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