You’ve got the brains and creativity to generate some seriously awesome social media content, but what about the images that will make them shine? Well, here’s your quick-guide to in-feed social media image widths for six of the major social platforms: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest and, I guess if we must … Google+.
Whether your image is vertical, horizontal or square, Facebook will determine which dimensions you should be using for the selected image. If you upload a horizontal image, it will be scaled to 470 pixels wide, and the height will adjust accordingly. Vertical images will be scaled to 394 pixels, aligned to the left, with white space to fill the sides. Overall, the universal size you should try to replicate when using images on Facebook is 1,200 x 628 pixels.
Have you noticed anything different lately about images on Twitter? That’s right, they now appear uncropped. That means your images will appear exactly how you intended them to look. You can include up to four images for each tweet, and when selecting the images you’d like, you can also choose a primary image that will appear as the main viewpoint. The optimal image size for Twitter is 1,024 x 512 pixels.
When you upload an image directly to your page, whether landscape, portrait or square, the image will surface at a maximum of 350 pixels wide. The height will then adjust accordingly. Keep in mind when sharing links and articles to LinkedIn that the thumbnail of the image will appear at 180 x 110 pixels. As is the case with images on any social network, if your photo has sufficiently high resolution, you shouldn’t experience any distortion. When selecting images for this platform, aim for 700 x 400 pixels.
Remember when Instagram, the most successful picture-posting platform known to mankind, only allowed a square photo? Well, let’s all be glad those days are behind us. You are now able to post horizontal, square and vertical images whenever you’d like. With those three options at your disposal, the ideal dimensions for your perfect selfie are 1,080 x 566 pixels (horizontal), 1,080 x 1,080 pixels (square) and 1,080 x 1,350 pixels (vertical). Now go post away!
Pinned images will appear a couple different places on the site, and each will have their own recommended image sizes. They will appear in the feed at a width of 235 pixels wide, and once clicked, they will have a width of 736 pixels. The heights will scale accordingly. You may also see a pin appear as the cover of a Pinterest board, or as a side ad for recommended pins. The perfect pin size for these images will be 735 x 1,102 pixels, to be exact.
Google+
Dun, dun, dun … Yes, Google+ is still considered one of the top social media platforms. Why? Well, that’s a story for another time. When you share links and articles to Google+, the featured photos will appear at a maximum width of 426 pixels, and the heights will adjust accordingly. If the image is smaller than 346 pixels wide, the image will be centered and updated with white space to each side. Like other social media sites, Google+ will also pull an image from the URL being used. This thumbnail will appear as a square, with the dimensions of 150 x 150 pixels. If you’re looking for the perfectly sized photo, 800 x 1,200 pixels is the way to go.
Now that you’ve got your social media image guidelines down, it’s time to put this information into play! Go out there and monkey around a bit with different sizes. Once you better understand how each site handles them, you’ll be able to make the most out of your social endeavors.
