How to Make Twitter In-Stream Images Stand Out.

Are you sharing pictures in your Twitterupdates?

Do you want to know how to make your pictures stand out on Twitter?

Twitter’s in-stream preview images highlight your shared visual content, so make the most of them.

In this article I’ll show you four ways to get your Twitter followers to pay attention to your pictures.

#1: Prep Photos for Automatic Resizing

Twitter’s in-stream preview lets users share and view photos right in their feeds, without having to click a link. It’s handy.

What’s not handy, though, is that Twitter automatically chooses a section of your image to display in the in-stream preview, forcing anyone who wants to see the whole thing to actually click on the tweet. That kind of defeats the purpose of in-stream preview.

For example, if I want to tweet this image of me working with my team, I could just upload the image to Twitter, send the update and call it a day. But I have no idea what part of that image is going to make it into the in-stream preview.

How do I know which part of my picture will show up in preview?

Instead of gambling, you can easily figure out what will and won’t show in the in-stream preview.

Twitter’s in-stream preview is always 440 pixels wide and 220 pixels tall (a 2:1 ratio). What that means is that any horizontal image will be cut off at the top and bottom but not at the sides.

With some easy calculations you can figure out exactly where those cutoff points are and ensure that the in-stream preview doesn’t leave out the best parts of your picture.

Before you start, find out the dimensions of the image you’re working with, thenfind the center of the image.

The full image, divided horizontally and vertically.

Divide the width of your image in half to find the 2:1 ratio and the number of vertical pixels you have to work with.

For example, if the original dimensions of the above image were 2048×1536, the dimensions of the in-stream preview would be 2048×1024. That gives you the number of vertical pixels (1024) and the 2:1 ratio that Twitter will shrink down to 440×220.

Now divide the in-stream preview height in half. Using the same example as above, you would divide 1024 in half to get 612.

From the horizontal line in the center of your image (the Y axis), move up that number of pixels (e.g., 612) on the Y-axis and draw another horizontal line. Do the same thing again, but moving down the Y-axis from the center of the image.

You’ll end up with something like this:

Help Twitter show the important part of your picture.

Boom! Everything inside that blue box is the in-stream preview. The blue box aligns with Twitter’s 2:1 template and is centered vertically to keep the best part of your picture visible.

With your image ready for in-stream preview you can add a little oomph to it. Think of the in-stream preview as a little banner ad. It’s a good opportunity to connect with your followers.

Add text to your picture to make it more interesting.

For example, I could add text to the in-stream preview portion of my image to create a mini-postcard for my followers. Cool, right? Anybody scrolling through his or her feed would see that tweet.

If I hadn’t taken the time to make sure my photo would fit in the preview, I may have put the text too far above or below the main image and it wouldn’t have shown up.

#2: Tweet Multiple Pictures at the Same Time

If you’re only tweeting one picture at a time, you’re missing out on one of Twitter’s most useful new features. You can now tweet up to four images in one fell swoop.

Adding multiple images to a tweet makes it even more eye-catching and tells a detailed story. Below I tweeted about what happens when my team descends on a renowned doughnut shop.