This is a guide to social media image sizing. Images are ever more important to digital marketers sizing those images is critical to having your marketing presence be as beautiful as possible.
Recently I was talking with another marketer who showed me an image of a high school girls’ swim team that was shared by a news outlet on social media. Because that news outlet isn’t doing their social media correctly, the image’s incorrect sizing meant that it appeared on Facebook to only highlight all the thing those girl’s dads don’t want young lads thinking about. That same organization shared an image of a Marine who was recently commended - but the image was also incorrectly sized and thus we saw a nice photo of a jacket. I assume the woman is his new wife.
Correctly sizing your social media images can mean the difference between beautiful, sharable content and getting hate mail from a swim team’s parents.
Correctly sizing your social media images can mean the difference between beautiful, sharable content and getting hate mail from a swim team’s parents.
Image sizing basics - before you begin
To find the size and dimensions of your original image before you upload it to your site:
- PC - Right click on the image file and select Properties.
- Mac - Press Option while clicking on the image file, then select Get Info.
How to work with images - tools and techniques
There are a lot of image editing programs. If you aren’t of a mind to spend any money on a photo editing program, check out PhotoPea - a free website that mimics a lot of Adobe Photoshop’s functionality.
Still, the big daddy rabbit in the graphic and illustration world is still Adobe’s Photoshop which is now distributed on a subscription basis. Essentially you pay $10/month for the rest of your life and you get to use Photoshop. Seriously.
If you have an iPad, Affinity Photo is a great photo editing tool and, with an iPad Pro, you can use the ApplePencil to manipulate the photos. I am moving more and more to my iPad Pro as my preferred photo editing tool.
Still, the big daddy rabbit in the graphic and illustration world is still Adobe’s Photoshop which is now distributed on a subscription basis. Essentially you pay $10/month for the rest of your life and you get to use Photoshop. Seriously.
If you have an iPad, Affinity Photo is a great photo editing tool and, with an iPad Pro, you can use the ApplePencil to manipulate the photos. I am moving more and more to my iPad Pro as my preferred photo editing tool.
Page Profile
All these social platforms use a square image for your profile picture, which carries an aspect ratio of 1:1. Facebook wants an image of at least 180 x 180 pixels in size or larger even though the company scales it down to 160 x 160 on a desktop computer and 32 x 32 across the platform.
Facebook has a new feature allowing a short video, up to seven seconds, as your profile picture. This can be a real eye catcher if you know how to create these short GIF videos.
Cover Photo
Ah, Facebook. They don’t make our lives easy as creators so there are a variety of different ways your cover photo will appear.
On desktop computers your photo will be 820 x 320. On smart phones it’ll be 640 x 360 pixels. While the minimum size for this image is 399 x 150 it’s best to create an image with enough extraneous background “fluff” that it looks good on multiple platforms.
Post
The ideal dimension for an in-stream photo on Facebook is 940 x 788 pixels which they will kindly scale down to 472 x 394.
Facebook Feed Advert
For an advert along with sharable link the ideal size is 1200 x 628 pixels
Facebook Stories
Stories was so successful over at Facebook’s Instagram house they brought it over to the main platform. Images for this should be 1080 x 1920 - yep, vertical images.
Facebook Event
Your event photo will look best at 1920 x 1080 pixels. This image will be reduced to 470 x 174 by Facebook.
All these social platforms use a square image for your profile picture, which carries an aspect ratio of 1:1. Facebook wants an image of at least 180 x 180 pixels in size or larger even though the company scales it down to 160 x 160 on a desktop computer and 32 x 32 across the platform.
Facebook has a new feature allowing a short video, up to seven seconds, as your profile picture. This can be a real eye catcher if you know how to create these short GIF videos.
Cover Photo
Ah, Facebook. They don’t make our lives easy as creators so there are a variety of different ways your cover photo will appear.
On desktop computers your photo will be 820 x 320. On smart phones it’ll be 640 x 360 pixels. While the minimum size for this image is 399 x 150 it’s best to create an image with enough extraneous background “fluff” that it looks good on multiple platforms.
Post
The ideal dimension for an in-stream photo on Facebook is 940 x 788 pixels which they will kindly scale down to 472 x 394.
Facebook Feed Advert
For an advert along with sharable link the ideal size is 1200 x 628 pixels
Facebook Stories
Stories was so successful over at Facebook’s Instagram house they brought it over to the main platform. Images for this should be 1080 x 1920 - yep, vertical images.
Facebook Event
Your event photo will look best at 1920 x 1080 pixels. This image will be reduced to 470 x 174 by Facebook.
Profile
As with other social media profile pictures, your Twitter image should be square with an aspect ratio of 1:1. An image of at least 400 x 400 is ideal but Twitter will scale this down to 200 x 200.
Header
Your header photo makes a big impact on your Twitter profile. A photo of 1500 x 500 is the way to go here.
Feed
Photos you add to your feed will display as 440 x 220 with a 2:1 aspect ratio. Twitter’s maximum allowed size is 1024 x 512.
As with other social media profile pictures, your Twitter image should be square with an aspect ratio of 1:1. An image of at least 400 x 400 is ideal but Twitter will scale this down to 200 x 200.
Header
Your header photo makes a big impact on your Twitter profile. A photo of 1500 x 500 is the way to go here.
Feed
Photos you add to your feed will display as 440 x 220 with a 2:1 aspect ratio. Twitter’s maximum allowed size is 1024 x 512.
Profile Picture
This is where you put a face on your brand. Choose a photo or logo with a 1:1 aspect ratio. Be aware that Instagram will crop the image into a circle and scale it down to 110 x 110 pixels.
Post
You can upload photos in just about any format you want to Instagram, but they will will automatically crop those images to 1:1 (square) in your feed. It’s best to start the images that way and a 1:1 square image at 600 x 600 pixels is the way to go.
Instagram Stories
Instagram Stories are another way to increase engagement on that platform. In this case it’s totally different than a regular post where they prefer a portrait (vertical) image with a 9:16 aspect ratio. Ideally your photos should be 1080 x 1920 size.
This is where you put a face on your brand. Choose a photo or logo with a 1:1 aspect ratio. Be aware that Instagram will crop the image into a circle and scale it down to 110 x 110 pixels.
Post
You can upload photos in just about any format you want to Instagram, but they will will automatically crop those images to 1:1 (square) in your feed. It’s best to start the images that way and a 1:1 square image at 600 x 600 pixels is the way to go.
Instagram Stories
Instagram Stories are another way to increase engagement on that platform. In this case it’s totally different than a regular post where they prefer a portrait (vertical) image with a 9:16 aspect ratio. Ideally your photos should be 1080 x 1920 size.
Profile
As with the other social platforms your profile photo should be a square image with a 1:1 aspect ratio. In the case of Pinterest this will appear as a 165 x 165 image on your home page which will get scaled down to a 32 x 32 thumbnail across the platform.
Board Cover Photo
You can customize the look of your Pinterest profile by creating custom covers for your boards. These images work best at 222 x 150 pixels.
Pins
Portrait (vertical) images are the most successful n Pinterest, so make sure they have a 2: aspect ratio. The minimum width for a pin is 600 pixels and the maximum is 735. I recommend 735 x 1102 pixel images. These will be scaled to 238 pies wide in the Pinterest main feed.
As with the other social platforms your profile photo should be a square image with a 1:1 aspect ratio. In the case of Pinterest this will appear as a 165 x 165 image on your home page which will get scaled down to a 32 x 32 thumbnail across the platform.
Board Cover Photo
You can customize the look of your Pinterest profile by creating custom covers for your boards. These images work best at 222 x 150 pixels.
Pins
Portrait (vertical) images are the most successful n Pinterest, so make sure they have a 2: aspect ratio. The minimum width for a pin is 600 pixels and the maximum is 735. I recommend 735 x 1102 pixel images. These will be scaled to 238 pies wide in the Pinterest main feed.
YouTube
Profile
As with all the social platforms, square is where it’s at. In the case of this particular platform, 800 x 800 pixels is the ideal which the platform will drop to 98 x 98 for thumbnails.
Cover Photo
Like with Twitter, your TubeTube header makes a grand statement. Create a 2560 x 1440 image which will be scaled and cropped to various sizes depending on the platform it is viewed on.
Video Thumbnails
While YouTube will automatically generate thumbnails for your videos, they are very rarely the eye-catching ideal that you will want telling your video’s story. Create a custom thumbnail for every video you upload to your channel with an aspect ratio of 16:9. If you want to be qualified for HD viewing, the image must be at least 1280 x 720 pixels.
As with all the social platforms, square is where it’s at. In the case of this particular platform, 800 x 800 pixels is the ideal which the platform will drop to 98 x 98 for thumbnails.
Cover Photo
Like with Twitter, your TubeTube header makes a grand statement. Create a 2560 x 1440 image which will be scaled and cropped to various sizes depending on the platform it is viewed on.
Video Thumbnails
While YouTube will automatically generate thumbnails for your videos, they are very rarely the eye-catching ideal that you will want telling your video’s story. Create a custom thumbnail for every video you upload to your channel with an aspect ratio of 16:9. If you want to be qualified for HD viewing, the image must be at least 1280 x 720 pixels.