How can I choose which photo gets published in facebook from my wordpress blog?

• 

  julieinbali · Member · Mar 25, 2013 at 4:22 am

  • Copy link
  • Add topic to favorites

  WordPress randomly chooses which photo goes onto my facebook link. I want to choose the photo, how can I do that?

  The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)

• 

  thesacredpath · Member · Mar 25, 2013 at 4:45 am

  • Copy link

  That is a good question and there is no acceptable answer really. FB are the ones that pull the image, and I’ve seen them pull images out of the sidebars, especially if there aren’t any image in a post. I’ve seen people have luck when they insert an image either left or right aligned into the first paragraph of a post, but then again I’ve seen FB ignore that and pull an image 3 or 4 down in the post.

  How’s that for a “not what I wanted to hear” sort of non-answer?

• 

  thesacredpath · Member · Mar 25, 2013 at 4:46 am

  • Copy link

  @raincoaster is the social media diva, so perhaps she will pop in and have something to say on this.

• 

  julieinbali · Member · Mar 25, 2013 at 8:18 am

  • Copy link

  Hi thesacredpath
  Thank you so much for your honest, if totally frustrating, answer.
  With the vast number of intricate things that computer technology can do (run massive global companies etc), it is simply unbelievable to me that I cannot chose a single photo to put on a giant social media network like facebook.
  Wonder if facebook tech bods are proud of themselves.

• 

  raincoaster · Member · Mar 25, 2013 at 8:20 am

  • Copy link

  I’ve had no luck at all trying to control this. Sometimes it doesn’t even look like it’s including an image at all, and then I go back later and there it is.

• 

  1tess · Moderator Emeritus · Mar 25, 2013 at 8:32 am

  • Copy link

  I use the excerpt module to publish for subscribers and for facebook (which imo the facebook bots cannot feel anything close to “proud of themselves)

  Here’s what I do (after having some really stupid pictures chosen by fb):
  1. Write my post, with pictures, galleries, featured image whatever.
  2. Then I write a custom excerpt (which goes out on RSS and to email subscribers whether or not the custom excerpt works for the theme as a whole).
  3. I paste the custom excerpt with picture into the excerpt module.
  4. Copy and cut all the “real post” from the post, leaving the custom excerpt text and image in both the custom excerpt module and in the post editor.
  5. Publish so the excerpt goes out to fb and subscribers.
  6. Refresh the (stupid) facebook page until it shows my excerpt and picture.
  7. Paste the real post back into the post editor and update.

  Takes longer to describe than to do. It is only a matter of seconds before facebook gets the excerpt and my paste/update is done.

  It’s really annoying because many of my posts are step by step “how to” crafts and if facebook shows a close-up of scissors cutting off some scrap part of the project, who is going to look at that? Better to show the finished piece…

  I wish they would let you choose the picture for the fb thing, but unless you turn off the auto publicize and post it yourself manually you have no control.