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Social media image sizes 2016

Do you know your social media image sizes?

Social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram and YouTube are updated constantly, hence image requirements change accordingly.

Digital marketers spend several hours creating social media images ready for posting to promote the brand’s visual awareness. Being instantly recognisable is key to attract new user’s attention and stand out from your competition. In order to optimise social media one must ensure that images are the best fit for specific platforms and are of the highest quality. This becomes particularly challenging when each social network has their own dimensions and requirements.

This awesome infographic from Constant Contact explains what are the correct image size requirements for 7 of the most popular social networks. First I’ve included some examples of cover and profile pictures for these platforms:

Facebook

Facebook is the biggest social platform with around 1.44 billion active users per month! Choosing correct image sizes will attract higher audiences and increased engagement rate. It is very important to remember that pictures displayed on your timeline will look differently than in user’s news feed, so we would highly recommend using these parameters:

Cover photo must have dimensions of 851x315 pixels, otherwise it will be stretched. Minimum allowed size of a pic is 399x150 pixels on desktop and 640x360 on mobile. It is recommended that your uploaded picture would be less than 100 KB and would be .jpg file containing RGB colours.

Profile picture should be 180x180 pixels. This is the main picture, representing you or your brand’s logo and will always appear when you post on other walls or comment on posts. On Desktop the picture will appear as 160x160 pixels and on smartphones – 140x140.

Shared Image recommended size is 1200x900 pixels. Shared images will always appear on your timeline, and if used with recommended dimensions - will make your timeline look awesome.

Twitter

Twitter is one of the biggest and popular social platforms with an average of 313 million active users per month, supporting over 40 languages with around 500 million tweets sent daily by its users. This is a vitally important channel because users retweet everything and anything they like (or dislike!) about your brand, so ensure your images look nice and have the correct requirements.

Cover photo must be 1500x500 pixels and be saved at the highest resolution possible because it will the first image that will capture your visitor’s attention. Maximum uploading size on mobile is 5 MB and up to 15 MB on the web. You can use .jpg, .gif or .png formats.

Profile Photo recommended size is 400x400, which will be actually displayed as 200x200. Maximum file size – 2 MB.

Shared Image should be 506x506 pixels for best results.

Google+

Google+ is important for your company because it is directly tied to Google’s search engine which increases chances of people finding your brand.

Cover photo size should be 1080x608 pixels. Profile photo recommended minimum is 250x250 pixels and it is advised to always use larger photos. Shared Image minimum requirements are 497x373 pixels with a maximum permitted of 2048x2048 pixels.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is the world's largest professional network with over 360 million users and it is the best place to source great employees and connect with other industry leaders.

Profile photo recommended sizes are between 400x400 and 20,000 x 20,000 pixels. Minimum file size is 10 MB. Accepted formats – .jpg, .gif, .png.

Standard Logo should be 100x60 and cannot exceed 2 MB.

Pinterest

Pinterest is becoming more and more popular because it is an amazing social tool that can drive a lot of traffic to your website. 90% of Pinterest pages are external links. Make sure that you use correct image sizes and optimize your page regularly.

Profile photo appears at 165x165 on a home page. It is recommended to upload larger files which Pinterest then will automatically resize to their requirement. Maximum upload is 10 MB. Supporting formats – .jpg and .png.

Pin sizes in the feed appear as 238 pixels (height is scaled). Clicked pins appears as 600 to 735 pixels (height is scaled). It’s recommended to use an image aspect ratio of 2:3 to 1:3.5.

Instagram

Instagram is the popular photo sharing social network that has over 100 million users. It is a great platform for sharing creative ideas and professional images.

Profile photo – 110x110 pixels. Make sure to maintain an aspect ratio of 1:1, because it is square photo.

Youtube

Youtube has over 1 billion unique users monthly and is compatible on hundreds of million devices. This platform is an awesome tool that helps in reaching your fans.

Profile photo should be minimum of 800x800 pixels. Cover Photo standard dimensions – 2560x1440 pixels. For Tablet display – 1855x423 and mobile – 1546x423.

As you will quickly determine, each additional network’s cover and profile pictures are vastly different, consuming a huge amount of time and resources adapting and resizing images for a specific social media platform.

If you have additional questions regarding correct image sizes or social media marketing – don’t hesitate to contact the team at Blu Mint Digital. We would love to collaborate with you.