The Essential Cheat Sheet for Social Media Image Sizes
Every so often, popular social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus change the format, layout, and style of their networks.
Just when you feel comfortable with the most recent updates, along comes a whole new round.
One area that continues to evolve is social media images. From cover photos to the exact right dimensions for posts, keeping up can feel impossible.
To help you make the most of your online presence, I’ve put together an essential list of social media image sizes for the top eight social networks.
You’ll also find best practices and examples that show you how to leverage graphics to build awareness, interest and engagement.
To make it easy, click on each link to skip to your favorite social network, then save or pin the Infographic via Set Up a Blog Today.
2015 Social Media Image Size Guide
Skip to a Social Network
Twitter
Facebook
Google+
Instagram
Pinterest
Tumblr
YouTube
LinkedIn
Twitter
Header Photo: 1500 x 500
Profile Photo: 400 x 400
In-Stream Photo Preview: 440 x 220
Your Twitter profile offers several ways to use images to stand out. First, you have your header photo. Just like your cover photo on Facebook and Google Plus, Twitter’s header image is your branding opportunity.
Use your header image to align your look and feel, marketing message and company tagline. And before you throw away a chance to brand your business, know the answers to a few questions.
Who is your target market?
How do you help solve their problems?
What is your call to action and what next step do you want them to take?
Additionally, the Twitter in-stream photo is a great way to brand your tweets and grab the attention of your followers. Are you using images within your tweets? If not, now is the time to get started.
While the Twitter preview size is 440 x 220 (a 2:1 ratio), I’ve found that an image size of 1024 x 512 pixels works perfectly within the feed.
To determine what text will show up within your image, you could use this formula from Laura Rhoeder:
“Divide the width of your image in half to find the 2:1 ratio and the number of vertical pixels you have to work with. Now divide the in-stream preview height in half. Using the same example as above, you would divide 1024 in half to get 512.
From the horizontal line in the center of your image (the Y axis), move up that number of pixels (e.g., 512) on the Y-axis and draw another horizontal line. Do the same thing again, but moving down the Y-axis from the center of the image.
Everything inside that blue box is the in-stream preview. The blue box aligns with Twitter’s 2:1 template and is centered vertically to keep the best part of your picture visible.”
Or, you can make it easy on yourself and create your images in a tool like Canva or QuotesCover that will help you determine where to place your text.
Facebook
Cover Photo Dimensions: 851 x 315
Profile Image: 400 x 400
Shared Images: 1200 x 900
Are you ready to turn up the volume on your business and gain the edge over your competition? Then get visual on Facebook!
Meaningful Facebook conversations begin with great content, this includes the images you share.
Use your Facebook cover photo and newsfeed images to connect fans to your brand. Whether it’s a picture of your latest business offering or one that promotes your recent blog post, make sure the look and feel best represent who you are offline and online.
Google Plus
Profile Image: 250 x 250
Cover Image: 1080 x 608
Shared Image: 497 x 279
When was the last time you updated your Google+ profile or page? If your answer is, “I don’t know,” then now is the time.
Did you know that posts including an image are 87% more likely to get shared than posts without?
Peg Fitzpatrick, author of “The Art of Social Media” and social media power user seconds that,
“You can’t be guaranteed a share if an image doesn’t pull through on the Pin it button or onto Facebook or Google+. Help people help you by providing an image that they can share. If people can look like a rockstar sharing your content, it’s a win!”
Just take one look at her beautiful images and it’s easy to see why her content gets the shares it does.
Instagram
Profile Image: 110 x 110
Photo Thumbnails: 161 x 161
Photo Size: 640 x 640
With more than 300 million users, Instagram has become a visual marketing social leader.
Whether you’re sharing your latest blog post, business quote or helpful tip, Instagram has marketing super powers, no matter the industry or niche.
While completing your profile is incredibly important with any social network, this is especially true with Instagram since you’re limited in the amount of information you can share.
That’s where the right visuals come in very handy. Use your graphics to better connect with your audience, tell your story and brand your business.
But keep in mind; you will need to crop your photos to fit within the social apps square dimensions. If you’re adamant about keeping the original dimensions of your photo, there are apps that can help.
Ann Tran has great success with images that aren’t the traditional Instagram square. As you can see, her engagement on this post proves that mixing it up just makes sense.
Pinterest
Profile Image: 165 x 165
Board Display: 222 x 150
Pin Sizes: 236 / 600
Are you interested in marketing your business with Pinterest?
Not only can a persuasive Pinterest image attract attention, but also inspire action and drive traffic to your website or blog.
Don’t miss the opportunity to optimize your images for maximum engagement!
What you need to know:
Pins in the feed will have a width of 236 pixels and expanded pins have a minimum width of 600 with the length adjusted to scale.
As Sprout Social says,
When adding a pin to your board it’s important to remember that Pinterest puts a limit on the width of the image but not the length. This gives you the opportunity to add a photo that’s square or one that will scale to be even taller. Just remember to make sure you’re creating large images because they add more value, not just because you can.
I have had great success with larger images over the last several years, finding that larger images receive more repins, likes and clicks.
My perfect size is 735 x1200. However, don’t be afraid to mix it up and see what works best for you.
This image, created over one year ago for the article, “10 Steps to Creating a Winning Social Media Strategy,” is 600 x 900 and still sits at the top of Pinterest search for the keyword “social media.”
Tumblr
Profile Image: 128 x 128
Image Posts: 570 x 750
With over 420 million users and over 113 million posts per day, Tumblr is no lightweight when it comes to visual marketing.
So, what do you need to know?
Aside from the profile photo, which should be square, your second biggest concern should be the images you share.
Disney is a great example of a brand that understands the importance of creating network specific content. Rather than sharing the same piece of content across multiple platforms, Disney tailors their content for this specific audience.
Learn from their example. Whether sharing a photo, video or GIF, think engagement and awareness when sharing your business content on Tumblr, Instagram, Facebook, Google Plus or Twitter.
YouTube
Channel Cover Photo: 2560 x 1440
Video Uploads: 1280 x 760
Since YouTube is a video-sharing site and not a photo-sharing site, your graphic focus will be your channel’s profile image and cover photo.
What do you need to know about YouTube videos?
In order to qualify as HD quality, they must be a minimum of 1280 x 760.
Videos must maintain a 16:9 aspect ratio.
Make it a point to choose the most catchy video thumbnail.
Your videos tell a story. What are yours telling about you? Keep the most relevant videos at the forefront of your YouTube channel like my interview with Guy Kawasaki and Peg Fitzpatrick.
LinkedIn
LinkedIn’s continued growth and move towards visual marketing make this an important place for your business to be.
With over 332 million members, LinkedIn is growing at a speed of more then 2 new members per second. Does that sound like a place you can afford to forget about?
Spruce up your LinkedIn profile by adding a new cover photo (did you even know they allowed cover photos now?) and add consistent status updates.
As Constant Contact points out,
While some may consider LinkedIn one of the least visual social networks, reports have shown that you can increase your LinkedIn views by 11 times when you include a photo. We have found that including a photo with the content we’re sharing on LinkedIn from the Constant Contact page typically doubles the engagement rate.
Mike Allton with The Social Media Hat makes this suggestion for a perfect LinkedIn cover photo,
“Don’t just upload an image you like — make sure that image communicates something about you and your business to prospects, and add text to help contextualize the image, or at least add additional information.”
And his cover photo is an excellent example of making the most of this branding space:
Final Thoughts
I use images to brand my business in a consistent way. From my cover photos to my social media graphics, it’s easy to recognize my signature orange.
How are you using images to brand your business? Think about what purpose they’re currently serving.
Now decide how you can update your social media image sizes to create a memorable experience, no matter where anyone chooses to connect with you.
I’d like to put an end to the myth that you need a business plan if you want to succeed as an entrepreneur. This should do it.
Here are ten billion dollar companies or corporations that didn’t start with business plans.
Google
2014 Revenue: $65.83 Billion
Google was started as a class project by Sergey Brin and Larry Page while in graduate school at Stanford in January 1996. They simply wanted to create a better search engine that ranked websites based on their relationships to one another rather than the number of times the search term existed on the page.
Google wasn’t even a company until 32 months later when they incorporated in September 1998 so they could hire their first employee.
Yahoo!
2014 Revenue: $4.6 Billion
Yahoo! was started as “David and Jerry’s Guide to the World Wide Web” by Jerry Yang and David Filo (also Stanford graduate students) in February 1994. Their solution to finding information on the internet was to create a directory of websites, as opposed to a searchable index of pages.
It was just two dudes creating a database of websites they found and liked.
This is a quote about the history of Yahoo! from Yahoo.com:
“Due to the torrent of traffic and enthusiastic reception Yahoo! was receiving, the founders knew they had a potential business on their hands. In March 1995, the pair incorporated the business and met with dozens of Silicon Valley venture capitalists. They eventually came across Sequoia Capital, the well-regarded firm whose most successful investments included Apple Computer, Atari, Oracle and Cisco Systems. They agreed to fund Yahoo! in April 1995 with an initial investment of nearly $2 million.”
Apple
2014 Revenue: $182.35 Billion
Apple got its start in 1976 when Steve Wozniak convinced Steve Jobs to sell the Apple I Computer. So Jobs took the computer to a local computer store and the owner agreed to buy 50 of the machines at $500 apiece.
Then Jobs took the purchase order to a parts distributor to order the parts they needed and proceeded to build 50 computers in 30 days. Just in time to get paid by the retailer and pay their distributor.
Apple Computers started with a few simple transactions of a quality product. Not with a business plan.
Facebook
2014 Estimated Revenue: $12.47 Billion
As most of you probably know, Facebook was started by Mark Zuckerberg in February 2004 as a social networking site for his fellow Harvard students. They didn’t incorporate until later that summer.
Like Google and Yahoo!, it wasn’t a business so it didn’t need a business plan. It was just a promising idea that created a growing community with big potential.
General Electric
2014 Revenue: $148.94 Billion
General Electric was founded in 1890 by Thomas Edison as a vehicle to sell his inventions. Edison had been inventing for 14 years prior to founding the company. Some of his 1,000+ inventions included the incandescent light bulb, motion picture camera, and alkaline storage battery.
From an entrepreneurial perspective, Edison created over 1,000 products before he started his company. Maybe he could’ve benefited from a business plan. But maybe that would’ve thwarted his inventing.
This is my favorite Thomas Edison quote and an incredible lesson in entrepreneurship:
“I never perfected an invention that I did not think about in terms of the service it might give others… I find out what the world needs, then I proceed to invent.”
Disney
2014 Revenue: $48.81 Billion
If you read about the 10 World Famous Companies that Started in Garages, you’ll know that the world’s largest media conglomerate had humble beginnings. Walt Disney started the company with his brother Roy as a creative studio with a character named Alice.
They started filming the Alice Comedies, which was part of Alice’s Wonderland, and sold their short films to a distributor.
No business plan required.
Pepsi
2014 Revenue: $66.68 Billion
What is now PepsiCo started back in 1898 when a pharmacist and drugstore owner named Caleb Bradham invented a fountain drink he called “Brad’s Drink.” He sold the concoction in his store, so he was his own distributor.
Pepsi got its big break in 1909 when automobile racer, Barney Oldfield, endorsed the drink as, “a bully drink…refreshing, invigorating, a fine bracer before a race.”
It took 11 years to hit their big break. Maybe a business plan would’ve expedited that process, but I believe it’s best to let businesses grow naturally rather than trying to rush things.
Nike
2014 Revenue: $27.79 Billion
Nike’s roots started in 1962 when its company’s founder, Philip Knight, graduated from the University of Oregon and decided to travel across Japan. While in school, Knight was a star track athlete. During his visit to Japan, he came across Onitsuka Tiger Co and offered to import their shoes so he could resell them in the US.
To satisfy the Japanese company’s request, he filed a company and named it Blue Ribbon Sports. They didn’t change their name to Nike, Inc. until 1978.
Cisco
2014 Revenue: $47.14 Billion
Cisco started in 1984 when the manager of the Stanford computer science laboratory, Leonard Bosack, wanted to communicate with his wife, Sandra Lerner, from across campus. Bosack devised a way to connect the two local area networks which later became the inspiration for the multi-protocol router.
That year they mortgaged their house, deferred their salaries, and hired their friends so they could sell this internetworking technology. Three years later they were selling $250,000 worth of routers per month.
Walmart
2014 Revenue: $485.65 Billion
After working in retail stores across the country, Sam Walton opened “Walton’s Five and Dime” in Bentonville, Arkansas in 1945 with a $20,000 loan from his father-in-law and another $5,000 of his personal savings.
The first Wal-Mart Discount City store didn’t open until 17 years later in Rogers, Arkansas.
Walmart was successful because of Sam Walton’s experience and disruptive philosophy within the retail industry, not because of a business plan.
What’s the Point?
Just because many of the world’s most successful businesses didn’t start with a business plan doesn’t mean the business plan is an worthless tool. But it does prove that it’s not necessary.
If you want to start a business, start with a simple idea that can help a lot of people. Create something out of that idea and let it grow naturally.
A business plan could and probably would help, but don’t let it get in the way of creating.
Instagram made a big advertising announcement recently as it prepares to add new formats and targeting options, and perhaps most significantly start letting businesses of all sizes buy ads.
Instagram first launched ad a year and a half ago on a limited basis, and has since expanded formats most recently to include carousel ads. The company says that across over 475 campaigns measured globally, ad recall from sponsored posts was 2.9x higher than Nielsen norms for online advertising.
Instagram will begin testing direct response ads in the coming months. These will enable users to buy products or download apps from the ads.
“People come to Instagram to follow their passions, from travel and fashion to cars and entertainment,” the company says in a blog post. “They want to see ads that reflect the things they care about. Advertisers also want to target their messages in more effective ways and reach people not just because of their age, location and gender, but because of the people, places and things they love.”
“Later this year, we will continue to connect businesses to the right people through expanded targeting options,” it adds. “Working with Facebook, we will enable advertisers to reach people on Instagram based on demographics and interests, as well as information businesses have about their own customers. We will also improve the feedback mechanisms within Instagram to give people greater control and improve the relevance of the ads they see.”
The company is working to make advertising available through an Ads API and Facebook ad buying interfaces over the coming months in an effort to open op ads to businesses of all sizes. It says it will leverage the best of Facebook’s infrastructure for buying, managing, and measuring ads.
They’ll be opening the API to a select group of Facebook Marketing Partners and agencies at first, and will expand globally throughout the year.
Google
Yahoo!
Apple
Facebook
General Electric
Disney
Pepsi
Nike
Cisco
Walmart