Social Media Photo and Video Sizing Guide
If social media is part of your marketing strategy (and it probably should be), it's important to iterate and test which post types your audience responds to. There is a lot to consider when it comes to visibility with changing algorithms for platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Sloppy and incorrectly sized images are unappealing and unprofessional, and can affect how your content performs. It’s important to make sure that the sizing and dimensions are up to date every piece of social media content you post.
Never fear! There's a super easy way to tackle this challenge. Enter the Genius House Social Media Sizing Guide. Below, you'll find current image and video sizes for a variety of platforms.
One thing to note before we start - Facebook recommends much larger images than the size at which they'll be displayed. This ensures that your photos look top notch on the platform.
Image Post - 1200 x 630 - This one is a classic. One of the most popular post types on Facebook, the shared posts resides in users' News Feeds. As I referred to earlier, optimizing your images and copy will help engage your audience and help your post perform better in Facebook's algorithm.
Video Post - 1280 x 720 or 720 x 1280 - Similar to the image post, the video posts are shared in users' News Feeds as determined by the all-powerful algorithm. Depending on whether your video is shot landscape or portrait, your aspect ratio will be 16x9 or 9x16.
Image Post - varies - This one's a bit more complicated. Your image can be reduced in the stream to a size of 506 x 203, but typically, it appears at a 2:1 ratio, starting with 440 x 220. Keep your content in a "safe zone" to avoid your content getting cut off by cropping.
Video Post - also varies - Oh, Twitter. Video posts also vary in size! Twitter is optimized for videos captured rom a mobile device, so if you're uploading video captured in another way, you'll want to refer to their handy chart for sizes and bitrates. Overall, your dimensions should be between 32x32 and 1280x1024, and your aspect ratio should be between 1:3 and 3:1.
Image Post - 1080 x 1080 - Instagram is the ultimate photo and video sharing platform! Naturally, their image guidelines are simple. The best size to upload is 1080x1080, and Instagram will scale these photos down for display. While you can use rectangular photos, the square shape is an Instagram classic.
Video Post - varies - Videos on Instagram can be uploaded in three sizes: landscape, square and vertical. For landscape, you want a 1920 x 1080 video size at a 16:9 ratio. Square videos should be uploaded at 1080 x 1080 (obviously a 1:1 ratio!). And vertical videos should be 864 x 1080 at a 4:5 ratio.
Stories - 1080 x 1920 - Instagram story content aspect ratio is 9:16.
Got more questions about social photo and video optimization? Give us a shout! As video and social media experts, we'd love to help.