Social Media¶

Django Cast automatically generates Open Graph and Twitter Card meta tags for posts and episodes, enabling rich social previews when links are shared.

Open Graph and Twitter Card Meta Tags¶

Post templates emit meta tags inside a {% block social_meta %} block, which is nested inside {% block meta %}. Theme authors can override this block to customize social meta output.

Blog Posts¶

Posts use the summary_large_image Twitter card type. The following meta tags are generated:

Meta Tag	Source
`twitter:card`	`"summary_large_image"`
`twitter:title`	`page.seo_title`
`twitter:description`	`page.search_description`
`twitter:image`	`social_cover_image_url` (1200x630 rendition)
`twitter:image:alt`	`cover_alt_text`
`og:url`	`absolute_page_url`
`og:title`	`page.seo_title`
`og:description`	`page.search_description`
`og:image`	`social_cover_image_url`
`og:image:alt`	`cover_alt_text`
`og:image:width`	`social_cover_image_width` (only if image exists)
`og:image:height`	`social_cover_image_height` (only if image exists)
`og:type`	`"article"`
`og:updated_time`	`updated_timestamp`

The seo_title and search_description fields are standard Wagtail page fields. Set them in the Promote tab of the Wagtail editor. If search_description is empty, some themes fall back to page.title.

Podcast Episodes¶

Episodes with an attached podcast_audio file override the social_meta block to use the Twitter Player Card type. This enables inline audio playback directly in the Twitter/X timeline.

In addition to the standard tags above, episodes add:

Meta Tag	Source
`twitter:card`	`"player"` (overrides `summary_large_image`)
`twitter:player`	`player_url` (the Twitter Player view URL)
`twitter:player:stream`	`episode.podcast_audio.m4a.url`
`twitter:player:stream:content_type`	`"audio/mp4"`
`twitter:player:width`	`480`
`twitter:player:height`	`240`
`og:audio`	`episode.podcast_audio.m4a.url`

If the episode has no audio file, the template falls back to the standard post meta tags (summary_large_image card).

Twitter Player View¶

The Twitter Player Card requires a URL pointing to an embeddable player page. Django Cast provides this via the twitter_player view at:

/<blog_slug>/<episode_slug>/twitter-player/

URL name: cast:twitter-player

This view renders a minimal HTML page (cast/twitter/card_player.html) containing only a Podlove Web Player play button. The page is designed to be embedded in a 480x240 iframe by Twitter/X.

The player is initialized with:

The episode’s M4A audio file URL
The episode’s duration
The show title and URL from the parent blog

The player_url context variable is automatically set on episode detail pages and passed to the episode.html template as an absolute URL.

Template Customization¶

To customize the social meta tags in your theme, override the social_meta block in your post.html template:

{% block social_meta %}
  <!-- your custom meta tags -->
  <meta name="twitter:card" content="summary_large_image">
  <meta name="twitter:title" content="{{ page.seo_title }}">
  <!-- ... -->
{% endblock social_meta %}

For episodes, override the same block in episode.html. Use {{ block.super }} to fall back to the post-level tags when the episode has no audio:

{% block social_meta %}
  {% if episode.podcast_audio %}
    <!-- player card tags -->
  {% else %}
    {{ block.super }}
  {% endif %}
{% endblock social_meta %}