When sharing your post on Facebook, especially content with images, you tend to use image thumbnail. This is one of the best ways of catching on attention of your followers and also for making sure your post gets a click. People are surely going to click on the image, and that would directly take them to your post.
Somehow, this is one of the best ways of attracting attention, getting visitors and engaging your audiences. But, what if the image fails to show up when you share it on your Facebook page? This is a possibility you just cannot neglect. Sometimes an incorrect thumbnail manages to grab your attention and that too for all the wrong reasons.
A lot of people have experienced this sort of issue especially when sharing content on Facebook. There are ways to solve this issue and get Facebook to share the image you have chosen for this purpose. Here is a way to fix the issue.
Reasons for the Incorrect Thumbnail
There is always a reason why Facebook is not picking up the correct thumbnail. You need to first approach the reason for the incorrect thumbnail image and then probably move on with fixing it. One of the several reasons could be the size of the thumbnail image you are planning to associate with your content on Facebook. Let’s say you have a thumbnail image especially for Facebook. It is small in size, and can be compared with the other images used up in the content. This is when your content does not recognize the image on Facebook. Most Facebook thumbnail images are open graph images and recognized by SEO by Yoast used by WordPress. Once it is recognized by Yoast, it is automatically added to your content.
There are other reasons as well why your thumbnail is not recognized by SEO by yoast or Facebook
- There are several caching plugins that don’t support use of thumbnails when you are uploading your content to Facebook
- CDN issues could also obstruct sharing correct thumbnails on Facebook
- When you don’t have a meta tag associated with the open graph image that you are planning on making the thumbnail image, you would find an issue when you get around sharing it on Facebook
Make sure you pay attention to the error messages; they are of great help at all times. You will see that error messages help you track what is going wrong when you intend on sharing content with image on Facebook.
Method 1: Uploading Images Manually
Let’s take a case where you have shared a content on Facebook with the relevant image. Now, Facebook has refused to upload the thumbnail that you have categorically arranged for sharing purposes. What is that you would do in such a case? You will see a tag saying upload the image. Use that tag and manually upload the open graph image you have sorted out for this purpose.
The image you upload in this case will stay in the photos page of your Facebook. You can always delete it from there without worrying about the thumbnail. The thumbnail image will remain irrespective of the fact whether or not you have in the photos page.
There is one hitch in manual uploading though. In case your content is shared, the image does not get shared. This simply means they will need to manually upload the image as well, and this is not going to happen. So, uploading manually has its drawback.
Call to Facebook to Use Thumbnail
Let’s say when you are uploading content on WordPress, you arrange for the open graph image that Facebook can recognize there itself. Here’s how you do it.
Do you use SEO by Yoast plugin on your WordPress site? If yes, then this is what will help you enable the set image for Facebook. You will need to go to SEO meta box on the WordPress site. This is below the post editor. Here click on the social tab. On clicking here a button will popup asking you to upload the image for Facebook. Upload the image here and your issue of wrong thumbnail is completely solved. In case it is not, you will need to reset the cache for your Facebook.
The Debug Tool
In case you are having issues uploading open graph images to your Facebook page, you can always use the debug tool available with Facebook. You will need to paste the URL of your post, the one you are planning on sharing, in the debugger tool. You will find the error that is preventing the image from being posted to your Facebook page. Most common error would be related to size. With the debugger tool you can fix the issue by pressing the debug button again. The error will disappear and your post is uploaded.
Try it out and find out which one works for you in the best possible way.
