Featured image for social sharing ot author archive page

Question

Personal blog with occasional guest authors (non-commercial) self hosted Wordpress. I create a bespoke author PHP file for each author (example).
I use Yoast SEO and set a default image for meta property='og:image' where one isn't specified for a post or page for sharing to Facebook / Google+, etc.

Is there any way I can over-ride the default image for the archive page for each author.
This could be done by coding either the individual author archive page or adding something to functions.php. Appreciate any guidance at all.

Answer 1

Try copying the following code into your functions.php file.

It adds a custom og:image property for the authors with nicenames of michelle-robinson, mystery-man, john-smith, and a default fallback image, respectively. You can easily change this to suit your needs.

add_action( 'wp_head', 'wpse_70701_author_image' );

function wpse_70701_author_image() {
    if ( is_author( 'michelle-robinson' ) ) {
        // set a custom image if we're visiting Michelle Robinson's author page
       echo '<meta property="og:image" content="http://www.phoneographer.org/wp-content/uploads/link-to-michelle-robinson-image.png" />';
    }
    elseif ( is_author( 'mystery-man' ) ) {
        // set a custom image if we're visiting Mystery Man's author page
       echo '<meta property="og:image" content="http://www.phoneographer.org/wp-content/uploads/link-to-mystery-man-image.png" />';
    }
    elseif ( is_author( 'john-smith' ) ) {
        // set a custom image if we're visiting John Smith's author page
       echo '<meta property="og:image" content="http://www.phoneographer.org/wp-content/uploads/link-to-mystery-man-image.png" />';
    }
    else {
        // set the default fallback image (you may want to omit this section)
       echo '<meta property="og:image" content="http://www.phoneographer.org/wp-content/uploads/link-to-author-image.png" />';
    }
}

Here, I've given the function a unique name, but you can call the function anything you want, as long as it is not already the name of another function. If you rename the function, you also need to edit the add_action hook.

Answer 2

If I understand correctly, you want to change the default image for each author on a WP install? Try this plugin http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/user-photo/

Alternatively, you can make a separate template for each author (if applicable).