How to Automatically Generate Open Graph (OG) Images

Open Graph (OG) images are the thumbnails displayed on social media platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn when someone shares a webpage link. A relevant and eye-catching open graph image can grab users’ attention, resulting in more clicks and interest in your content. Having a well-designed opengraph image also helps make your brand appear more professional and appealing online.

An open graph image or og:image is automatically displayed when you or someone else shares a link to an article or video from your website on social media. Without an OG image, your shared content will show a plain gray box or random banner, reducing the chances of organic traffic and quality leads. This article will guide you on automatically generating captivating open graph images tailored to each webpage’s unique content, transforming your social shares into visually engaging previews.

Table of Contents

What is OG Image?

An Open Graph (OG) image is the visual thumbnail that appears when a website is shared on social media platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Open Graph is a set of code that these social networks use to pull the image as well as other data, like a title and description, when a link is shared.

Definition of OG Image

By creating an OG image for your site, you can ensure that this thumbnail is curated — rather than being randomly selected or showing up as a blank gray box. The hope is that this image will accurately represent your site and will attract users to click through. The image you choose will be the first thing a user notices, so you want something that is representative of your site. Ideally, you’ll use an image that appears prominently on your site or in other brand collateral to create brand recognition. You’ll also want to use the established brand colors, typography, and logo to create a cohesive graphic and consistent user experience.

Importance of OG Images in Social Media

Along with your brand’s identifying features, a good OG image should include descriptive text to provide context. This may be your brand’s tagline or a brief mission statement — anything that will communicate why users should visit the page. Keep it concise, and avoid anything longer than 5 or 6 words. Consider the featured image and cropping to ensure that your photo is as captivating as possible to attract potential users. Use hierarchy to ensure information is weighted and will be communicated in order of importance, with the logo unobstructed and any text easily legible with a generous margin. Don’t forget to size your graphic for the appropriate social media — 1200x630px is usually the recommended size to avoid parts of the image being cut off or appearing blurry. Custom OG images can help you stand out, with studies showing posts with custom OG images can drive over 2X more engagement on social media compared to generic previews.

Benefits of Automatically Generating OG Images

Generating OG images automatically offers several benefits:

Performance Advantages

With a small amount of code needed to generate images, functions can be started almost instantly, allowing the image generation process to be fast and recognized by tools like the Open Graph Debugger.

Ease of Use

You can define your images using HTML and CSS, and the library will dynamically generate images from the markup, making the process user-friendly.

Cost-Effectiveness

Services like @vercel/og automatically add the correct headers to cache computed images at the edge, helping reduce cost and recomputation. This makes automated OG image generation cost-effective compared to manual creation for each post.

Setting Up OG Image Generation with Vercel

Requirements

To set up OG image generation with Vercel, you need to follow these requirements:

Install Node.js 20 or newer by visiting nodejs.org.
Install @vercel/og by running the following command inside your project directory: pnpm i @vercel/og.
For Next.js implementations, ensure you are using Next.js v12.2.3 or newer.
Create API endpoints that you can call from your front-end to generate the images. Since the HTML code for generating the image is included as one of the parameters of the ImageResponse function, the use of .jsx or .tsx files is recommended as they are designed to handle this kind of syntax.
It is recommended to use the Edge runtime by enabling the runtime: 'edge' config flag.
To avoid the possibility of social media providers not being able to fetch your image, it is recommended to add your OG image API route(s) to Allow inside your robots.txt file.

Getting Started with Next.js Example

To get started with a Next.js example that generates an image from static text, follow these steps:

Set up a new app with the following command: pnpm create next-app.
Create an API endpoint by adding route.tsx under the app/api/og directory in the root of your project.
Deploy your project to obtain a publicly accessible path to the OG image API endpoint. You can find an example deployment at https://og-examples.vercel.sh/api/static.

Consuming the OG Image Route

Based on the Open Graph Protocol, create the web content for your social media post as follows:

Create a <meta> tag inside the <head> section of your HTML document with the property attribute set to og:image and the content attribute set to the URL of your OG image API endpoint.

By following these steps, you can set up OG image generation with Vercel and consume the generated images in your web content for social media sharing.

Conclusion

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The Open Graph (OG) image is a visual thumbnail that appears when a website link is shared on social media platforms. Automatically generating these images offers several advantages, including performance benefits, ease of use, and cost-effectiveness. The article has provided a comprehensive guide on setting up OG image generation with Vercel, covering the requirements, getting started with a Next.js example, and consuming the generated images in web content for social media sharing.

In today’s digital age, where visual content reigns supreme, having captivating OG images can significantly enhance engagement and click-through rates when sharing links on social media. By following the steps outlined in this article, website owners and content creators can ensure their shared content stands out, attracts more attention, and ultimately drives more traffic to their websites.

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