Social Media Marketing Image Size Best Practices

To be effective in digital marketing and social media marketing, you’ll want to use the correct image sizes when posting to these platforms.

Here at WSI Digital Boost, we’ve researched the optimal image sizes for all the major social media platforms. Follow this guide to get the most out of your social media marketing efforts.

The Social Media Platforms Covered In This Article 

1. Facebook
2. Instagram
3. LinkedIn
4. Pinterest
5. Snapchat
6. Twitter
7. YouTube

Facebook – The Social Media Marketing Behemoth 

Facebook is the world’s largest social media platform with well over 2 billion active users in any given month. This number is fast approaching 3 billion. What’s important to remember is that these are the recommended image sizes. Anything smaller and Facebook will scale your images, making them look poor!

Facebook Cover Image: The recommended dimensions for the cover image is 820 x 312 pixels. Remember, if you’re using a logo, it’s always preferable to use Portable Network Graphic (PNG) images. While JPEG is fine for photos, their lossy compression is not suitable for flat graphics with steep transitions between colors.

PNG images give you the added benefit of transparent backgrounds – so keep that in mind.

Facebook Profile Image: The profile image will scale differently depending on the device from which you’re viewing. This image must be at least 180 x 180 pixels and will render at 170 x 170 on your desktop, 128 x 128 on smartphones, and 36 x 36 on feature phones.

Facebook Event Cover Image: Event cover images are stock-standard 1980 x 1080 pixels in dimension. They will display as 470 x 174 in your feed.

Facebook Highlighted Image: Your upload size here should be 1200 x 717 pixels. It’s going to display at 843 x 504 pixels in your feed.

Facebook Shared Image: The recommended size for Facebook shared images is 1200 x 630 even though they will scale to a 1:1 aspect ratio. They will display at a max width of 470 pixels in your feed and 504 pixels on a page.

Facebook Shared Link Image: Similar (but not identical) in size to the shared image, you’ll want to aim for 1200 x 628 pixels when uploading. Not coincidentally, this is the recommended featured image size for WordPress blog posts. The shared link image minimum for square images in feed is 154 x 154 pixels and 116 x 116 for your page. Rectangular images have minimum display sizes of 470 x 246 in feed and 484 x 252 on a page.

Instagram 

Visual and effective at communicating your brand, Instagram is a great digital marketing medium for connecting with your followers.

Instagram Stories Image

Upload a minimum resolution image of 600 x 1067 pixels. It’s advisable, however, to use 1080 x 1920 pixel images instead.

All Other Instagram Images

• Instagram portrait image: 1080 x 1350 pixels.
• Instagram square image: 1080 x 1080 pixels.
• Instagram landscape image: 1080 x 566 pixels.
• Instagram profile image: 110 x 100 pixels.
• Instagram thumbnail image: 161 x 161 pixels.

LinkedIn – Digital Marketing Targetted at Professionals 

Social media marketing via LinkedIn can be a rewarding exercise. Due to the professional nature of the platform, conversion rates are often higher than on other social platforms. At 6.1% for ads, there’s no reason to believe standard digital marketing results are not equally impressive.

Additionally, LinkedIn accounts for 80% of B2B leads. Because of this, you must place high-quality images when using this medium.

LinkedIn Profile Background Images: Often noticed even before the profile picture, LinkedIn background images should be 1548 x 396 pixels and no larger than 8MB in size.

LinkedIn Article Cover Images: Writing LinkedIn articles can seriously boost your influence in your niche. The ideal size for article covers is 2000 x 600 pixels. Images added to the article itself have the same limitations.

LinkedIn Profile Photo Images: Profile photos should be between 400 x 400 and 7680 x 4320 pixels and are limited to 8MB. LinkedIn profile photos should be headshots.

• LinkedIn company logo images: 300 x 300 pixels.
• LinkedIn company cover images: 1744 x 444 pixels.
• LinkedIn shared images and link posts: 1104 x 736 pixels.

Pinterest 

Pinterest is a source of inspiration for many. Every Pin is an image that can also link back to websites, making Pinterest a great traffic source.

Pinterest Board Display Images

The board display images are thumbnails posted to a Pinterest board. A minimum of 55 x 55 for small images. Large board posts should be 222 x 150 pixels.

• Pinterest profile photo images: At least 165 x 165 pixels.
• Pin images: A fixed width of 236 pixels, although the height is variable, depending on where the image is displayed.

Snapchat 

Snapchat has 200 million+ users, which you can direct to your site by placing a link at the bottom of your story. Both the Snapchat “Geofilter” image as well as the Snapchat image ads should be 1080 x 1920 pixels.

Twitter 

From tweeting during peak hours to @mentions, to harness Twitter’s full potential, you’ll have to get the image sizes right. It’s a worthwhile effort since Twitter boasts over 330 million users.

Twitter Header Photo: The recommended image size is 1500 x 500 pixels for the header photo.

Twitter Profile Image: Similar to LinkedIn, your profile picture will be cropped and displayed as a circular image. It will display at 200 x 200 pixels, but the recommended upload size is 400 x 400 pixels.

Twitter Instream Photo: The recommended aspect ratio is 16:9. Take this into consideration since the minimum image dimensions are 600 x 375, but larger images will look better when users click on the image.

YouTube – The World’s Second Largest Search Engine 

Yep, you read that right. The guys over at Alphabet must be doing something right to own positions one and two in this space. The video giant processes more than 3 billion searches a month!

You ought to seriously consider harnessing the power of this beast in your social media marketing campaign if you’re not doing so already.

YouTube Channel Profile Photo: While YouTube will only display at 98 x 98, you should upload an image of size 800 x 800 pixels for your channel profile photo.

YouTube Channel Cover Photo: Also known as channel art, the upload size is a recommended 2560 x 1140 pixels with a max file size of 4MB.

YouTube Video Thumbnail: The minimum width for the YouTube video thumbnail is 640 pixels. The recommended image size is 1280 x 720 pixels with a max file size of 2MB.

Conclusion 

While none of the above is strict guidelines, remember, if you can’t match the dimensions exactly, it’s safer to go with larger images rather than smaller.

For more social media marketing material, see the rest of our blog.

WSI Digital Boost is a full-service digital marketing agency. If you want help creating a social media marketing strategy that adds value and draws traffic to your site, as well as related services such as content marketing and video marketing, contact us today.