229: How To Preview Twitter Post Before Publishing Your Story on Medium

Featured Images & Twitter Cards

Scenario:
You write a story on Medium.com
You add an image from Unsplash or upload your own.
You add keywords, select Featured Image, check the box to Share on Twitter.

Possible Problems:
1. You check Twitter and see your post, but no image.
2. You check Twitter and see your post, but image is cropped funny.

1:91:1 Example sizes.

How To Preview Twitter Post Before You Publish Your Medium Story (Tutorial):

Do these steps before you publish your story.
(Note: Video tutorial below)

1. File Type: Use .jpeg instead of transparent .png for featured image.
2. Featured Image: Two methods to select featured image on Medium
   — Keyboard Shortcut: Shift + F (Click image and then type Shift + F)
   — Publish Menu: Click on thumbnail in Publish dropdown menu to choose featured image.
3. Click on ‘Share’ next to ‘Publish’
   —Copy Link to Clipboard(Cmd/Ctrl + C)
4. Open Twitter Card Validator in a new browser window:
   — Link: https://cards-dev.twitter.com/validator
5. Paste Link (Cmd/Ctrl +V) in URL field and click ‘Preview Card’ button
   —Preview will appear for you to review.
   —If no image is available, confirm you selected a .jpeg and not a .png as featured image.
6. Twitter Card Sizes: To view exact dimensions for all Twitter card sizes
   https://goo.gl/yZtfD2
7. Aspect Ratio I used for this tutorial: 1:91:1
   Sizes:
   800 x 418 pixels
   1080 x 945 pixels (size I used in tutorial)
   1800 x 945 pixels (good size for Instagram horizontal videos)

Cheat Sheet

Final Thoughts:

The 1:91:1 is only one solution to show everything in the frame. Other sizes/dimensions/aspect ratios will still look good in your Twitter preview, so do not worry about having all of your images this exact size. The main point of the tutorial is you now know how to preview your Twitter post and fix if it does not look good enough or there is no image at all.

Video Tutorial:

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