Control your site’s social media previews

Social media previews display information about your site when you share a link to social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn, and X (formerly Twitter). In this guide, you will learn how to control how your content appears when shared on social media.

WordPress.com automatically adds Open Graph meta tags (og:title, og:description, og:image) to all your posts and pages. When someone shares a link to your content on social media, these tags tell the social network what image, title, and description to display in the preview.

When sharing individual posts or pages, WordPress.com creates previews with this information:

• Title: The title of the page or post being shared.
• Description: The excerpt set for the page or post. If no excerpt is set, the first 195 characters of the content.
• Image: The featured image set for the page or post. If no featured image is set, social networks will look for images in this order:
  • An image from a slideshow.
  • An image from a gallery.
  • Any other image on the site.
  • An image linked from another website.
  • Your profile photo.
  • Other images found on the page, such as an image from the header, footer, or sidebar.

When sharing your site’s home page or archive pages (posts, categories, etc.), WordPress.com creates previews with this information:

• Title: Your site’s title.
• Description: Your site’s tagline.
• Image: Social sites will use:
  • The featured image of the front page, or
  • Your site icon if no featured image is set, or
  • Your site’s logo on sites with the Business plan or higher.

This section of the guide applies to sites with the WordPress.com Business and Commerce plan. If you have a Business plan, make sure to activate it. For free sites and sites on the Personal and Premium plans, upgrade your plan to access this feature.

If you have a plugin-enabled site, you can control how your content appears when shared on social media.

To set a custom image for an individual post:

1. Edit the post you want to share.
2. Click the Jetpack icon in the top-right of your editor.

3. Under the “Share this post” section, click the “Preview Social Posts” button.

4. Under “Attached Media“, click the “Choose media” button to upload an image or add one from your media library.
5. Schedule or share your post.

The Social Image Generator lets you create custom images with text overlays for when your posts are shared. This feature is available for posts only on sites using the WordPress editor.

To turn the Social Image Generator on, follow these steps:

1. Visit your site’s dashboard.
2. Navigate to Jetpack → Social.
3. Make sure you have at least one social network connected.
4. Toggle the setting next to “Social Image Generator” to ON.

To configure default settings that apply to all new posts:

1. Visit your site’s dashboard.
2. Navigate to Jetpack → Social.
3. Click the “Change defaults” button.
4. Select a default template and add a default image to use for all posts when a featured image isn’t present.
5. Click the Save button to save your changes.

To customize the Social Image Generator for a specific post:

1. Edit the post you want to customize.
2. Click the Jetpack icon in the top-right of your editor.
3. Click the “Preview social posts” button.
4. Under “Link preview image“, toggle the “Enable Social Image” setting to ON (if it’s not already on).

4. Click the Settings button to configure the following options:
   • Image Type: Choose how you want to handle the social media image.
     • Featured Image: Uses your post’s featured image (default behavior).
     • Custom Image: Upload your own image specifically for when your content is shared.
     • Plugin Default Image: Uses the default image set in Jetpack → Social.
     • No Image: Displays only your post title or custom header text.
   • Custom Header: Add custom text to appear on the image. Otherwise, the post title will be used.
   • Templates: Select from predesigned layouts.
5. Click the Save button to save the social image to the post.
6. Optionally, click the “Save to Media Library” button to keep a copy of the image to use in other places.

If your shared links aren’t appearing correctly, try clearing the cached social previews and verify that your image meets social media specifications.

Social networks cache social previews, meaning they save a previous version of your post’s details and don’t immediately update with the latest details if you have changed something. If you have modified your page or post settings, you can clear cached social previews to request the social network check your post again for the latest information.

Facebook and WhatsApp:

WhatsApp uses Facebook’s preview system, so fixing Facebook previews will also fix WhatsApp previews. Follow these steps to clear cached social previews on Facebook and WhatsApp:

1. Visit Facebook’s Sharing Debugger.
2. Paste your URL in the input field.
3. Click the Debug button.
4. Review the tags and preview information.
5. Click the “Scrape Again” button to refresh Facebook’s cache.

X (Twitter):

X (Twitter) re-indexes the card tag information on your page roughly every seven days. They offer some additional suggestions in the “Refreshing a Card in a Tweet” section of their troubleshooting guide.

LinkedIn:

1. Visit LinkedIn’s Post Inspector.
2. Enter your URL in the input field.
3. Click Inspect.

Follow these general guidelines when selecting the image you’ll use for your social previews:

• Recommended size: 1200 × 630 px works well across most social networks, and minimizes the risk of cropping issues.
• Aspect ratio: 1.91:1 is generally recommended.
• File types: JPG or PNG.
• Max file size: Keep under 5 MB; while some platforms may allow larger file sizes, 5 MB is the safest standard.
• Center important content: Prevent cropping on smaller viewports.

More information for specific social networks:

• Facebook Image Thumbnail
• LinkedIn Image Thumbnail