So, let's talk photos. Specifically, how to take photos of people that are going to end up on your website, so that their heads won't get cropped when your article goes viral.
Images that are too zoomed in on the subject will end up with cropping when shared.
Lots of websites aggregate all the sizes wanted by all the social media platforms. One look will have your head spinning. Not only are there a lot of platforms, but many platforms have three or more different sizes, depending on where the image is displayed. (Phone or desktop? Web or app?)
There are enough platforms that trying to optimize for a specific one is a recipe for insanity. If you're lucky enough to go viral, you'll have people sharing your links to platforms you don't even use and didn't think about, so choosing one platform to optimize for isn't a great option.
Don't go crazy. Instead do this: When you take pictures, make sure that anything important is in the center square of a 3x3 grid. If you do this, you will end up with an image that will "just work." Zoomed-out images with the subject in the middle square will "just work" for all social platforms. If it ends up full screen on a phone, it'll work. If it ends up square or 16:9 or 9:16 somewhere, it'll work. The secret here is that the important parts of the image are all in the middle, so the image can be automatically cropped to whatever dimensions without issues.
Does this violate some rules of great photography? Maybe, but it produces images that work when shared.
Zooming out means no heads get cropped!
Yes, portrait-orientation images are fine too!
If you load a zoomed out photo as your feature image, it'll work both on Ghost and when your site is shared. That is by far the easiest option.
But what if you really want to use a close-up for your featured image? Or the image that you really want to lead with isn't going to work for social media, but you really do want it to appear in the featured slot? In that case, you can load your social media images separately. Here's how:
With the post open in the editor, click the "post settings" button (top right corner). Scroll down to the X card and Facebook card.
These are confusingly-named. Every social platform will pull your image from one or the other of these cards, so just ignore their names and set both, any time you want to override having your featured image appear, upload your alternate image in both cards. It can 100% be the same image, as long as you are using a zoomed-out image.
Tip: The dimensions shown in the preview here aren't necessarily those used on all platforms. Load a zoomed-out image and move on!
Now, when you share, you won't have any important parts of the image lost.
It doesn't matter. Just put the important bits in the middle third, both horizontally and vertically.
Ghost will size your images to an appropriate size for your reader's screen. You don't need to resize them before uploading.
Social shares don't use anything except the featured image (or FB and X cards if set), so feel free to use whatever dimensions and cropping you like for the body of the post. (Most themes don't crop images in the body.)
Yeah, that happens. Platforms cache results.
I'm not aware of similar tools for other platforms, so it's a good idea to get the image right before publishing and sharing, or else you may see the wrong image for up to a week.
P.S. If you're having headshots taken, insist that the photographer produce a few images of you that meet these same requirements, along with all the cleverly framed and close-cropped versions. Your social media shares will thank you!