2020 Social Media Image Sizes Cheat Sheet

puja chourasia
May 13, 2020
8 min read

Updated: Sep 16, 2020

Social Media Platforms Optimized Image Sizes 2020

Get your social media platforms optimized with the right image sizes and stand out from the crowd. From Twitter and Pinterest to Instagram and Facebook image sizes, we have the complete guide right here in one clear infographic! We have even added two Chinese Social Networks – Weibo & We Chat!.

With the ever growing need to have a strong social media presence for your business / brand / personal profiles, it’s so important to optimize them with the right images to represent you.

To help you get the most out of your social media profiles, we’ve produced an infographic “The 2019 Social Media Image Sizes Guide” that tells you the best image sizes for each social network and image types; and to make certain that you’re up-to-date with social media platform optimization. This graphic will be constantly updated, so if the networks change their formats, we will be the first to show it in this graphic.

Not only do we list the specific dimensions, we’ve have also added some very quick tips and insights to help you decide what photo to use in what platform.

Along with the mobile revolution, the demand for social networking has probably taken the world by storm!

Whether it is for a business or a brand or a personal profile, there is a growing need to stay active on social media sites.

You are probably reading this article because you are looking for ways to optimise your social media presence.

And you would agree that images have a strong bearing on the way your social media profile is perceived or remembered!

But, with so many social media platforms, how do you remember the various image size optimisation guidelines?

A cool tip is to bookmark this blog post and the related infographic to stay updated with any changes to the social media image size optimisation rules.

In this article, we lay out a 2015 brief guide to social media image sizes or dimensions for the top social media websites.

Twitter Image Sizing Tips

Header Photo: 1500 x 500 pixels (a maximum 10 MB file size)

You can use an eye-catchy, creative image for your high-resolution header photo on your Twitter profile page. As a business, your Twitter page header photo should be in sync with your logo, tagline and brand.

Profile Photo: 400 x 400 pixels / Displays at 200 x 200 pixels (a maximum 100 KB file size)

It is often said that the “first impression is the last impression”! Your Twitter profile picture is your main identification mark that will be visible to everyone. It will be visible on your home page, on the Twitter stream of your followers whenever you Tweet and so on. Since it represents you or your brand, the image should be of the highest quality.

Post Image Size : The preview photo size is now different, and they made it fairly larger so it’s not necessary to leave the stream in order to see it. But above all, this change is essentially oriented towards making the optimization of brand communication campaigns much easier through storytelling, the new content marketing trend: using videos and images to tell a story which brings them closer to their public without falling into the already corrupt spot of TV advertisement. For example:

The dimension of a Twitter in-stream photo must be (minimum) 440 x 220 px with a maximum of 1024 x 512. Maximum file size: 5 MB for photos and 3 MB for animated GIFs.

Card Image Size : Twitter generates a rich Twitter Card when you post a link having a featured image at the top. A compressed form of the image gets embedded in the tweet. You can adjust the positioning of the image so that captions are not trimmed when the post appears in-stream. Just like avatars, tweeted images don’t follow the 2:1 aspect ratio. Rather, they should fit 1.91:1 or 1200px X 628px dimensions.

Image Sizing Advice for Facebook

Profile Picture: 180 x 180 pixels Unlike the cover photo, which only appears on your Facebook page, your Facebook profile picture will be seen on your page, on posts where you comment, on the timelines of others where you post messages, in search results of Facebook’s Open Graph and so on. In short, it represents you at most places on the largest social networking platform.

Cover Photo: 820 x 310 pixels (a preferred maximum file size of 100 KB) You can edit and add creative images as your cover photo that represents you or your business in the correct sense. – Appear on page at 820 x 310 pixels – Anything less will be stretched. – Minimum size of 399 x 150 pixels. – Smartphones display as 640 x 360 – For best results, upload an RGB / JPG file less than 100 KB. – Images with a logo or text maybe best as a PNG file.

Shared Image: 1200 x 630 pixels You can engage your friends or business followers in meaningful conversations by sharing useful images on your Facebook timeline. These will appear in the news feeds of your friends and followers. Check this post for more information on image sizes for Facebook

Highlighted Image: 1200 x 717 pixels Image Guidelines – Will appear on your page at 843 x 504 pixels. – Choose a higher resolution at that scale for better quality.

Shared Link: 1200 x 627

Image Guidelines: – Recommended upload size of 1200 x 627 – Square Photo: Minimum 154 x 154px in feed. – Square Photo: Minimum 116 x 116 on page. – Rectangular Photo: Minimum 470 x 246 pixels in feed. – Rectangular Photo: Minimum 484 x 252 pixels on page.

Facebook will scale photos under the minimum dimensions. For better results, increase image resolution at the same scale as the minimum size.

Event Image: 1920 x 1080 px Image Guidelines – Facebook will scale down to minimum dimensions: 470 × 174 pixels. – Shows in feed: 470 × 174 pixels.

Business Page Profile : 180 x 180 px Facebook used to have different rules for business page’s profile pictures, but not anymore. Now the dimensions are exactly the same as the personal profile picture.

We just wanted to include this section in case you came looking for it.

Guidelines

Needs a minimum width of 180px.
Can have a height below 180px, but the image will not be clear.
Has a 1:1 aspect ratio.

Image Sizing Guidelines for Google+

Profile Image: 250 x 250 pixels Again, this picture will be your identity across the Google+ network. Even though the dimensions are for a square image, your Google+ profile picture appears as a circle. So, you need to take special care of how your image looks without the important parts being cut out.

Cover Picture: 1 080 x 608 pixels You can use a large picture representing your brand, logo and business tagline as your Google+ cover image.

Shared Image: 497 x 373 pixels You can share images on your Google+ posts and indicate the specific “circles” with whom you want to share the image and for whom it may be more relevant. Remember, such images (along with the associated text) are likely to turn up in the Google search engine for search queries related to your posts or business.

Instagram Image Sizing Rules

Profile Picture: 110 x 110 pixels

Photo Size: 1080 x 1080 pixels

Video to Stories: 750 x 1334 pixels

On Instagram, you can upload a video to your timeline or share it to Instagram stories. The correct size to use will be determined by where you publish it.

The maximum duration of the video should be 10 seconds.

Photo Thumbnails: 161 x 161 pixels For all types of Instagram images, you need to maintain an aspect ratio of 1:1. So, all your images will appear in square dimensions. You need to take special care with the image quality because limited text content is shared on this platform. It is more about the pictures and visuals!

Recommended Image Sizes for Pinterest

Profile Picture: 165 x 165 pixels A Pinterest profile picture may not be as important as that of Facebook or Twitter profile pictures. However, you still need to use a nice one. After all, anyone who arrives at your board or pins through the keyword search will probably have a look at your profile too.

Board Display Image: 222 x 150 pixels Use eye-catchy images for posting on the relevant Pinterest boards.

Pin Sizes: a width of 238 pixels (with scaled height) Though these are the dimensions for your Pinterest pins, expanded pins will have a minimum width of 600 pixels. You can post larger images (as only the width is fixed, while the length can be scaled further up) for better engagement and more re-pins or likes.

Optimisation Rules for Tumblr Image Sizes

Profile Image: 128 x 128 pixels You can use a good looking square profile picture that visually represents you or your business on Tumblr. It will appear on your profile page, next to the button to “follow” you when someone lands on your page and as thumbnails next to your posts in your follower’s feeds.

Image Posts: 500 x 750 pixels You can post images with up to 10 MB file sizes (except for animated gifs which should not be more than 1 MB). You can thus upload really high-quality pictures for your Tumblr posts.

YouTube Image Sizing Guidelines

Channel Cover Picture: 2560 x 1440 pixels (for desktop), 1855 x 423 pixels (for tablets), 1546 x 423 pixels (for smartphones), and 2560 x 1440 pixels (for TV)

The sizes are optimised for the different platforms as YouTube videos are often streamed using any of the above mentioned platforms. Also, the video channel cover image should tell your viewers more about the kind of videos that they will probably be able to view on your channel.

Video Uploads: 1280 x 760 pixels

You know that YouTube is a video sharing site and not an image sharing one. So, you need to maintain this resolution (about 16:9 aspect ratio) for the videos that you upload.

Image Size Optimisation for LinkedIn

Personal Background image: 1584 x 396px

Standard Logo: 400 x 400 pixels

Profile image: 400 x 400 pixels – Recommended between 400 x 400 & 20,000 x 20,000 pixels – Minimum 200 x 200 pixels – 10mb maximum file size / JPG, GIF or PNG files only

Linkedin Brand / Company Pages Image Sizes

Background image: 1536 x 768px Recommended:1536 x 768 pixels. Minimum size of 1192 x 220. Maximum 4MB. Appears as 1400 x 425 pixels. Image types include: PNG, JPG or GIF.

Standard Logo: 400 x 400px Image Guidelines – 400 x 400 pixels recommended (300 x 300 minimum and resized to fit). – Maximum 4 MB (Square layout). – PNG, JPG or GIF.

One of the two brand logos that you should be uploading to LinkedIn is the business logo. This is the bigger of the two and is going to show up right next to your brand name on your LinkedIn homepage. This image also appears in the “Companies you may want to follow” section, so the more enticing the photo the more likely the followers!

Business / Career Cover Picture: 974 x 330 pixels

Image Guidelines: Minimum 974 x 330 pixels. Maximum 2 MB. Landscape Layout. PNG, JPG or GIF.

At the top of this page sits a banner that is bigger than any of the other images on LinkedIn. You can use this space to choose a picture that speaks to your company in order to attract some great potential employees.

Square Logo: 60 x 60px Image Guidelines – 60 x 60 pixels (resized to fit). – Maximum 2 MB. – PNG, JPG or GIF.

This is the brand image that shows up when your company is searched. Make sure you use something recognizable to your brand to make sure customers know which company they want to click on.

Business Banner Image: 646 x 220 pixels Image Guidelines – Minimum 646 x 220 pixels. – Maximum 2 MB. – Landscape Layout. – PNG, JPG or GIF.

Banner images is one of the newest and most prominent of the images that you can use on LinkedIn. This image appears when a user visits your brand’s homepage. Since this image is located on your homepage it’s likely the visitor is actively searching for your brand, so use this opportunity to reel them in with a great image.