A Complete Guide to Social Media Image Sizes

Social media image sizes are a lot more important thank you might think. For example… how many different social platforms are you signed up and sharing content from your website or blog to your audiences?

According to numerous reports online, the average internet user has five different social profile pages. For the average site owner, blogger or marketer, we can likely double that number. Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Tumblr are just a few of the top social networks in the world today, but they definitely shouldn’t all be treated the same. Not only are their audiences different in nature, each social platform is also designed differently in how content is delivered as well.

To help with this process, we introduce an infographic on the top social media image sizes that you should be following today. While image sizes might not seem like a big deal, they can definitely have a huge impact on engagement, conversions, and click-rates. A great way to think of this, is that you just spent hours on creating the perfect article for your site… why not spend an extra few minutes to use a tool like Canva to create a high-quality image for each social sharing platform? You might just be surprised with the results.

At the same time, along with social networks being treated differently based on the type of content being posted, it’s also important to know the best times of the day to post content as well. Did you know that a social update on Twitter has a lifespan four times shorter than a post being made on Facebook? Not only is it true, it’s a perfect example of why such information is important for brands and site owners of all sizes.

The concept of what types of content to post on social media, and the peak hours of the day are very important… but that’s also another whole big discussion in itself. To learn more about this, I recommend you check out this great social media times infographic. You can see a preview of that infographic and best posting times for Twitter below.

best_times_to_post_to_twitter

Getting back to our original point of discussion, just like social networks are changing all the time, so are their image sizes and specifications. These are spec and stats that you will want to stay updated on to make sure you are posting and sharing the highest level of quality images as possible.

How important is image sharing on social media you might ask? Here are a few industry stats to stress this point.

  • Visual content is more than 40X more likely to get shared on social media than other types of content. (Source)
  • Articles with an image once every 75-100 words got double the number of social shares than articles with fewer images. (Source)
  • 71% of online marketers use visual assets in their social media marketing. (Source)
  • Facebook posts with images see 2.3X more engagement than those without images. (Source)
  • Buffer reported that for its user base, tweets with images received 150% more retweets than tweets without images. (Source)
  • On Instagram, photos showing faces get 38% more Likes than photos not showing faces. (Source)

With all of the facts and information now laid out for you on the importance of using images within your social media marketing and outreach, along with knowing the best times of the day to post status updates, we can now move on to the actual list of sizes to display images on social media.

Below is the full infographic from Blogging.org that shows the social media images you’ll need. After the image you will also find a text summary on images for each social network as well.

social-media-image-guide-blogging-hd

Here’s a quick preview of what you need to know, along with a full infographic below breaking down the top social networks and visuals of each image spec on each platform.

Facebook

The cover photo on Facebook is one of the most important images you will have. The size for this image is 828 x 315 pixels with a maximum file size of 100kb. The minimum size for Facebook cover photos is 399 x 150 pixels.

Twitter

Your Twitter profile photo is one that all of your Twitter followers will see when your status updates are scrolling through this feed. The size of this image should be 400 x 400 pixels.

Google Plus

Similar to Facebook and Twitter, Google Plus also allows users to add a profile photo as well. The Google Plus format requires a profile image of 250 x 250 pixels. If you are using Google Plus for a business, make sure to use a high quality and large image of your logo for this image.

Instagram

Instagram’s profile pictures are 110 x 110 pixels. The photo size for standard photos is 640 x 640. Photo thumbnails should be 161 x 161. Try to keep all images with a “perfect square” concept to make sure they display correctly.

Pinterest

Profile pictures on Pinterest should be 165 x 165. Even though users aren’t actively using Pinterest to see your profile image or logo, it’s still good to have a professional one in place.

Tumblr

Profile images on Tumblr should be 128 x 128 pixels. Image posts on Tumblr should be at 570 x 750 pixels. Images may be as large as 10mb in file size, but animations can only be one MB.

YouTube

As one of the world’s largest social media and video platforms, it’s important to make sure your page looks great. YouTube channel cover images should be 2560 x 1440 pixels for desktop users, 1855 x 423 for tablets, 1546 x 423 for smartphones, and 2500 x 1440 for TV.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is great for connecting with others in your niche. Have a great first impression with a great looking profile photo. Your standard logo image for LinkedIn should be 100 x 60 pixels. Your cover picture should be 974 x 300 pixels. Your banner image should be 646 x 220 pixels.

Follow these social media image sizes to make sure you are looking best at all times!

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