I know I have done it before. The main, button or cover photo on a post needs to be changed up for one reason or another, be it because of a need to change the cover photo in the form of an update, a mistake or legal reasons. Changing the cover photo works easy enough on a website, and also the Facebook and Pinterest share tools change the cover photo that will be directly shared from a website almost immediately after changing the cover photo on a website. The problem is that the Twitter and LinkedIn share tools DO NOT change the cover photo that will be shared from a website, unless the cover photo is manually changed. Reason? Because the cover photo is cached on the servers at Twitter and LinkedIn. Thereby saving a lot of memory room on the servers. The servers actually save a lot of time and handling by a protocol launched by the social media channel that handles images by a “Card Validator” or “Post Inspector”.  The reasons that you want to make sure that future sharing has the correct image goes back to the whole reason that you change the button or cover photo on a website. Since Twitter and LinkedIn are not automatic, I am showing you the method to do so in order to make the share photo correct on both social medium.

A Cover Photo of BEFORE & AFTER of the Raw Share:

A Cover Photo of BEFORE & AFTER of the Raw Share

The above cover photo’s left two photos were of screenshots taken of a raw share after I already changed the photo. I checked the share for both Facebook and Pinterest, and the cover photo is always automatically updated. Twitter and LinkedIn are notorious for having original cover photos that are uploaded on the publishing date because the images are permanently stored and cached onto the websites–so unless it is manually changed, and the change is not updated, it will continued to be shared with the original, now defunct cover photo.

Utility To Correct A Wrong Sharing Photo on Twitter & LinkedIn:
The website administrator can do this fairly easy by using a utility tool. This utility needs no additional hardware, software, apps–just to go onto a developer’s utility page! Here I will share the steps to make sure that further and future sharing of your website at the following URLs:

Twitter.
“Card Validator” site: https://cards-dev.twitter.com/validator Enter the URL to the link to your website’s post where the cover photo has been updated into the “PREVIEW CARD” toolbar, and click the website tool bar’s button. Hit the F5 button on your keyboard directly on the post, to clear the cache both in your computer’s cache and the website’s cache, unless your website gives further instruction to wipe the cache with another method. Wait 60-120 seconds. Test to verify the change to the share by clicking the share button. If it does not take effect, ditto the effect by repeating the steps. If it does not work after 2-3 times, the cache at Twitter may need to be wiped by their administrators, and therefore a more serious wait could be needed. I have never seen a case where it has not succeeded, so be patient. Sometimes walking away a while and viola! Once the changes are intact, they will be permanent, and will be made to further sharing of the post with the correct cover photo from thereon.
CLICK HERE to START the Card Validation Process
LinkedIn.
“Post Inspector” site: https://www.linkedin.com/post-inspector/ Enter the URL to the link to your website’s post where the cover photo has been updated into the “INSPECT”  toolbar, and click the website tool bar’s button. Same process as done on Twitter: Hit the F5 button on your keyboard directly on the post, to clear the cache both in your computer’s cache and the website’s cache, unless your website gives further instruction to wipe the cache with another method. Wait 60-120 seconds. Test to verify the change to the share by clicking the share button. If it does not take effect, ditto the effect by repeating the steps. If it does not work after 2-3 times, the cache at Twitter may need to be wiped by their administrators, and therefore a more serious wait could be needed. I have never seen a case where it has not succeeded, so be patient. Sometimes walking away a while and viola! Once the changes are intact, they will be permanent, and will be made to further sharing of the post with the correct cover photo from thereon.
CLICK HERE to START the Post Inspection Process

The cover photo can, but it is not actually guaranteed, that the already shared photo on Twitter and LinkedIn can change up after the share. The reason it is not guaranteed is that sometimes a cluster copy could be cached somewhere worldwide, and  the servers always use the quickest and easiest rendition of a file, and if the older cover photo is there it will use the first available copy. However, the newer shares will always come up with the new copy, after the “Card Validator” and “Post Inspector”. are changed up. This method also works anywhere a share is emanating from–blogs, stores or any type of website that uses a share button, utility, plugin–or other outsourced sharing utility. This even works on a manual line-style entry share as well, so you can be assured that the correct cover photo will pop up while sharing manually. As stated, Facebook and Pinterest start right away sharing your new image, but going back to previous posts, changing those photos is impossible.

Live With Assurance:
Sharing a new cover photo is a cinch, and your social media accounts will now have a correct cover photo! Life is hard, but with these two utility pages, your mind is at ease, knowing that an old cover photo that was changed will have the updated image upon future sharing of your website URL’s cover photo.

red-blue-and-yellow-textile-5417837 – Brett Jordan at Pexels

Brett Jordan at Pexels

Social Media Change of Updated Cover Photos

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