Change Instagram Links on Twitter to Native Photo Cards

I often get asked how do I post my Instagram Photos as Twitter Native Photo (Twitter Photo Cards)

Before I go any further, let me briefly explain what I mean by Instagram links and Twitter native photos

Instagram Posts URLs

When you post a photo on Instagram, then select to share it to Twitter like below.

By default; Instagram set their META Codes to display “their app” as an app card with “link” & “caption” of your Instagram post

Like the example below. The below was simply a post i made on Instagram, if you click on the link it will take you to the post/photo I added to Instagram

but, when you expand the tweet, it will show “Instagram app” not “my actual photo”

This is how the Tweet look if the normal sharing on Twitter method is used

How to Change Instagram Links on Twitter to Native Photo Cards?

So, how did I Change Instagram links on Twitter to Twitter Native Photo Cards, I simply created a new Recipe in my @IFTTT account. What the recipe does is, find the photos you post on instagram, and “upload” them to “pic.twitter.com”. By doing so, the photos became “Twitter Native Photos” and turn into Twitter Photo Card. Like the example tweet below,  the photo was originally posted on Instagram, and using this IFTTT recipe, it was turned to Twitter Native Photo

This Photo Tweet was posted from “instagram” using IFTTT (this was basically an instagram post not Twitter post but converted by IFTTT)

عظم الله اجرك يا وطن #وفاة_الملك_عبدالله pic.twitter.com/9CcAKD838k

— Amged Osman ??‍? (@Amged) January 23, 2015

IFTTT Recipe to change Instagram Photos to Twitter Native Photos

1. Simply go to this recipe
2. Connect Instagram
3. Connect Twitter
4. Post Photos to Instagram
5. It will be posted as Native Twitter Photo Car, same as the example above

Why Use Native Photo Cards

In a blog post by Twitter, their research team confirmed that Posts with Photos get more engagement (Replied, retweets, favorites) than normal links

• Photos average a 35% boost in Retweets
• Videos get a 28% boost
• Quotes get a 19% boost in Retweets
• Including a number receives a 17% bump in Retweets
• Hashtags receive a 16% boost

Also, Dan Zarrella from Hubspot made an article under the name of “Use Images on Twitter to Get More ReTweets”

The article had 3 main points to proof

Tweets with pic.twitter.com are 94% more likely to be RTed

Instagram links are 42% less likely to be RTs

Tweets with Facebook links are 47% less likely to be RTs

How to setup photo card for your website?

As an additional piece of information, if you would like to setup your blogposts to be treated as photos, you can simply visit my article  All About Twitter Cards, it has the codes and explanation on how to create Twitter Native Photo Cards from your website (Search for Twitter Photo Cards)

And here’s a tweet example of a photo posted on my website that is displayed as Photo Card

Loved McLaren when they had that color for their cars http://t.co/nvzaghDFoE

— Amged Osman ??‍? (@Amged) October 22, 2014

I hope this comes handy to someone, please feel free to share how you do it if you use different methods

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Also published on Medium.