This is test 9 of trying to find the best social media image size and composition that will work for more than one social media site, a single image that will work for social sharing images on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.
So far, I’ve found that with longer images, in a 1:2 ration, Facebook has smart cropping to a landscape image that centers on eyes. Twitter always takes a square image from the center of the longer image, no matter what is in the image.
However, when I posted an image that wasn’t as long, a ratio of 1:1.5 with a face, Twitter smart cropped instead of taking from the middle!
This is image will be in the same dimensions, but have a building instead of a person.
Results:
Well, smart cropping definitely presents a problem. For this image, which was the same dimensions as this image, Facebook and Twitter did different things.
Image with a 1:1.5 ratio
Face:
Facebook centered on the face, landscape image
Twitter centered on the face, square image, that in this case was all photograph.
Building:
Facebook took from the center of the image, about the center third, which for this image worked out perfectly since the banner only took up 1/3 of the image at the bottom.
Twitter took a square – from the center of the image! – which meant that it showed the top of the banner line, but not the entire banner line. It cuts the banner line off in a awkward place, the top half of social media image.
One more test. What kind of faces are recognized and what happens when the faces are lower in the photo?