Social Media Image Sizes: A Quick Reference Guide

Much like anything else with social media, the recommended image sizes for each platform seem to change constantly.

One week you may have the perfect cover photo for your private practice’s Facebook Business Page. But the next week, you log in only to find out that it’s been resized to their new preferred dimensions – leaving your image all pixellated and unnaturally stretched out in one direction or another.

Keeping track of what size all of your images should be for every social media platform you’re trying to stay active on can take as much time as creating the actual content you’re posting. Not to mention, the social media platforms themselves don’t make it very easy to find any official information on their current image guidelines.

So, we’ve put together this list of current social media image sizes, as of November 2019, to help you make sure you’re using the optimal images for your private practice social media.

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Social Media Image Sizes by Platform in 2019:

• Facebook Image Sizes
• Twitter Image Sizes
• LinkedIn Image Sizes
• Instagram Image Sizes

You can jump to a specific section by clicking on it from the list above. Otherwise, we’re going to cover each of these social media platforms below.

Facebook Image Sizes

It is important to note that Facebook is constantly updating its design and recommended image dimensions – more so than any other social media platform.

So, when uploading any images to Facebook, use a JPG or PNG file to avoid any image distortion or loading issues now or in the future.

Also, for photos that include your logo or any other text, use a PNG file to get the clearest result.

Facebook Profile Photo Recommended Size: 170 x 170 pixels

Keep in mind that your profile picture will be cropped to a circular shape a good majority of the time, so avoid using an image with important elements in its corners.

Facebook Cover Photo Recommended Size: 720 x 315 pixels

The minimum recommended size is 400 pixels wide x 150 pixels tall.

The recommended aspect ratio is 16:9.

Also, keep in mind that some areas of the cover photo will likely be covered by your page’s profile photo, name, category, and interaction buttons, so avoid using an image with important elements along the bottom and left side.

Facebook Post Photos Recommended Size: 1200 x 630 pixels

The minimum recommended size is 600 pixels wide x 315 pixels tall.

The recommended aspect ratio is 16:9 but this will crop down to 1.91:1 if you include a link in your post – these are known as ‘link preview’ posts.

Facebook Group Cover Photo Recommended Size: at least 400 x 150 pixels

For a higher-quality image, try to use an image that is 800 pixels wide by 300 pixels tall.

The recommended aspect ratio is 1.91:1.

Facebook Ad Image Recommended Size: highly varies

The sizes for the many different types of Facebook Ads available vary greatly from ad type to device type, to ad placement, and so on.

To view these design recommendations, please visit the official Facebook Ads Guide.

Twitter Image Sizes

Tweets that include images consistently get more clicks, more likes, and more retweets than those that only contain text. So, it’s definitely important to get these images right!

When uploading any images or video files to Twitter, use one of its supported file formats: JPG, PNG or GIF. However, Twitter does not support animated GIFs for your profile photo or header image.

The maximum filesize for uploads is 3MB for photos and 5MB for animated videos.

Twitter Profile Photo Recommended Size: 400 x 400 pixels

The minimum recommended size is 200 x 200 pixels.

Just like Facebook, your Twitter profile picture will be cropped from a square to a circle. So, avoid using an image with important elements in its corners.

Twitter Header Image Recommended Size: 1500 x 500 pixels

The minimum recommended size is 1024 pixels wide x 280 pixels tall.

Note that your profile photo will overlap a small portion of your header image, so try to avoid using an image with something important in that portion.

Hot Tip: Canva is a free photo editing site that allows you to create beautiful images for Twitter that are already sized to the correct dimensions. Design your Twitter header image here.

Twitter Post / Tweeted Image Recommended Size: 1024 x 512 pixels

The minimum recommended size is 440 pixels wide x 220 pixels tall.

Hot Tip: Canva is a free photo editing site that allows you to create beautiful images for Twitter that are already sized to the correct dimensions. Design and resize an image for your Tweet here.

Twitter Ad Image Recommended Size: varies

There are different image size recommendations depending on the type of Twitter Ad – also referred to as a Summary Card.

To review their specific design recommendations, visit the Twitter Cards Overview.

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LinkedIn Image Sizes

LinkedIn updates that include images have consistently proven to increase comments, likes, and shares on this social media platform.

LinkedIn Profile Photo Recommended Size: 400 x 400 pixels

The minimum recommended size is 300 x 300 pixels.

However, unlike its social counterparts, LinkedIn can actually accommodate very large profile photo files – up to 8MB – so go ahead and future-proof this image by uploading it as large as you can!

LinkedIn Cover / Background Image Recommended Size: 1536 x 768 pixels

The minimum recommended size is 1992 pixels wide x 220 pixels tall.

Linkedin Photo Share Recommended Size: 1200 x 628 pixels

When posting images to your company page, make sure you’re using PNG or JPG images.

Linkedin Ad Image Recommended Size: varies

Once again, the image size recommendations for LinkedIn Ads vary quite a bit from one ad format to another.

To review their specific recommendations, visit the LinkedIn Ad Specs & Guidelines.

Instagram Image Sizes

Being that Instagram relies almost solely on images, there’s no doubt that getting the sizing right for these images is crucial to your success on this platform.

While it used to be much easier to keep track of all of Instagram’s recommended image sizes, they’ve recently expanded from only allowing square images to support horizontal- and vertical-aligned images as well.

Instagram Profile Photo Recommended Size: 320 x 320 pixels

The minimum recommended size is 110 x 110 pixels.

Just like other social platforms, Instagram profile photos are also displayed as a circle. This means you’ll want to make sure all of the important elements are centered and don’t extend to the corners, otherwise they’ll get cropped out.

Instagram Photo Posts Recommended Sizes: up to 1936 x 1936 pixels

No matter the recommended size of your image, the minimum recommended height and/or width for any Instagram photo post is 320 pixels.

The optimal size for posting photos to your Instagram feed depends on the orientation of your original image.

Generally speaking, all posted images have a recommended width of 1080 pixels with a height between 566-1350 pixels, depending on its orientation.

Recommended sizes by orientation are as follows:

• Landscape: 1080 x 608 pixels (1.91:1 aspect ratio)
  • The minimum recommended size is 600 x 315 pixels
• Portrait: 1080 x 1350 pixels (4:5 aspect ratio – this is the same as an 8×10 photo)
  • The minimum recommended size is 600 x 750 pixels
• Square: 1080 x 1080 pixels (1:1 aspect ratio)
  • The minimum recommended size is 600 x 600 pixels

Note: Even though Instagram now supports landscape and portrait images, they will still be cropped to a square thumbnail on your image gallery (main profile) page.

Instagram Stories Image Recommended Size: 1080 x 1920 pixels

The recommended aspect ratio is 9:16.

It is worth mentioning that some devices will display stories in different resolutions, going as low as 1080 x 608 pixels. However, it’s best to stick with the recommended upload size of 1080 x 1920 pixels to future-proof your stories.

Instagram Ad Image Recommended Sizes: varies

The image sizes for Instagram ads follow the same size recommendations as Instagram posts.

Hot Tip: You can use the same images for your Instagram ads that you’ve used for Facebook link preview posts. So, there’s cross-platform compatibility between Instagram and Facebook ads which can save you a TON of time!

 

Growing Your Business

Now that you know what the recommended sizes are for all your social media posts, it’s time to put that data to work!

Social media automation tools, like Brighter Vision’s Social Genie, allow you to schedule content (including images) to post exactly when you want on the days you want.

Fill out the form below for a 14 Day Free Trial to the best Social Media management software for therapists.

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