Wondering about social media aspect ratio?
Or why you should care?
Understanding this concept will make your image creation so much easier!
You will no longer have to stress over every pixel in your social media image sizes.
And, you’ll be able to use the same images on several social channels.
Because it’s all about the aspect ratio!
Aspect Ratio Confusion
I often hear readers complain, “My cover photo is too big!”
But it’s not about the pixel size! It’s the aspect ratio (or shape, or proportions).
On each of the four types of Facebook cover photos, the aspect ratio differs for desktop vs. mobile view.
The easiest way to deal with the Facebook cover photo size dilemma is to start with a 16:9 aspect ratio horizontal image and be prepared for plenty of cropping at the top and bottom once uploaded to Facebook.
As long as you keep text overlay or important features away from the top and bottom, you’ll be fine.
What is Image Aspect Ratio?
The aspect ratio of an image is the ratio of its width to its height. It is commonly expressed as two numbers separated by a colon, as in 16:9. For an x:y aspect ratio, the image is x units wide and y units high. Via Wikipedia
The width is always expressed first. So a 16:9 image is wider than it is tall, but a 9:16 image is taller than wide.
Similar concepts are proportion and shape. For example, an image in 1:1 aspect ratio is a square shape, and the width is in direct proportion to the height.
How Does Image Aspect Ratio Help Me?
Most social media platforms express their preferred image sizes in pixels. There’s usually a minimum and maximum pixel dimension specified.
But, the exact pixel size you upload isn’t really important! What is important is the aspect ratio, because on many networks, you’ll be cropped into that shape regardless of the pixel size image uploaded.
Once you understand the aspect ratio, you can see where the same image can be used on multiple social media platforms.
Social Media Aspect Ratio, Simplified
From most horizontal to most vertical, here are the aspect ratios and suggested sizes that work across social media.
Some shapes work across several platforms: asterisked* means it’s the preferred shape on that platform.
1.91:1 ratio
- Facebook, LinkedIn, and X (Twitter) links shares*: 1200 x 628 pixels
- Instagram and X (Twitter) photo posts: 1200 x 628 works here as well
16:9 ratio
- X (Twitter) photos*, Facebook photos: 1200 x 675 pixels
- Facebook cover photos (allow for cropping top and bottom!): 1200 x 675 pixels or larger
- YouTube channel art*: 2560 x 1440
- YouTube video thumbnails*: 1280 x 720
1:1 ratio (square)
- Instagram photos*, Facebook photos: 1200 x 1200 pixels
- Pinterest Pins (repurpose from Instagram)
- All profile pictures* (allow cropping to circle): 500 x 500
- YouTube channel icon*: 800 x 800
4:5 ratio (portrait)
- Instagram posts (tallest allowed): 1080 x 1350
- Pinterest Pins (repurpose from Instagram)
2:3 ratio
- Pinterest Pins*: 1000 x 1500, or width that fits your blog x 1.5
9:16 ratio
- Facebook and Instagram Story images*, Snapchat*, TikTok: 1080 x 1920
- Pinterest Pins: 1000 x 1776, or width that fits your blog x 1.7777
1:2.1 ratio
- Long Pinterest Pins: 1000 x 2100, or width that fits your blog x 2.1
Pinterest no longer recommends these “tall pins” but they’re still successful!
Special note about infographics
There isn’t a set aspect ratio for infographics, BUT I strongly recommend you stay in a 1:2 to 1:6 proportion. Much taller than that and your infographic becomes annoying to scroll, especially on mobile.
Images for the web should be exported at 72dpi in the sRGB color space. (Keep reading)
Pinterest Pins Aspect Ratio
Pinterest has often emphasized that the optimal shape is 2:3, or 1 1/2 times taller than wide.
From square (1:1) to 2.1 times taller than wide. Pinterest no longer recommends anything other than 2:3, but myself and many others have found anything in this range of proportions to be effective.
Recommended width: 600 pixels, up to the width of your blog content area. For high resolution, use 1,000 pixels wide and upload to Pinterest or Tailwind to avoid slowing down your site with large images.
Multiply your width times 1, 1.5, or up to 2.1 to get a Pinterest-optimal image shape.
Instagram Photo Posts Aspect Ratio
From 1.91:1 (horizontal) to 4:5 (portrait). All will be center-cropped to square in your gallery.
Social Media Video Aspect Ratio: Facebook and Instagram
When you create a video asset for Facebook or Instagram, design for mobile first. Vertical video (formats 4:5, 2:3, and 9:16) can be most engaging, since most people hold their phone upright.
Facebook, Instagram and Audience Network support a range of aspect ratios from 16:9 to 9:16. The depictions below give a feeling for the different shapes. Note how much more impactful the taller shapes are!
Facebook ratio recommendations
For video ads on Facebook without links, full portrait (9:16) is best. When using this format, ensure the most important parts of your video also display within the vertical (2:3) aspect ratio for optimal rendering in News Feed.
For video carousel, use square (1:1) and consistent ratios for all videos in a carousel.
For in-stream ads, use full landscape 16:9 to match video inventory.
Instagram ratio recommendations
Instagram supports 1:91 – 4:5 for all feed videos across all objectives.
Instagram Stories only accepts and displays in full portrait (9:16).
Facebook and Instagram ratio recommendations
To optimize the placement of your vertical video campaigns across both Facebook and Instagram, use vertical (4:5) videos. source
Download the video aspect ratio guide (PDF).
Nail that Social Media Aspect Ratio!
I hope the illustrations here have helped you understand what aspect ratio means.
Our goal is to alleviate your confusion and simplify visual content creation.
Scroll back up to find the links for the articles specific to Facebook cover photos, Pinterest Pins, and Instagram images.
Please Pin, share, or tweet this post about social media aspect ratio. Thanks!
Shaun says
Hi Louise
Great article. I have now changed all my twitter graphics to 16:9 rather than rehashing my Instagram ‘squares’ which only read well if you ‘opened’ my tweet.
Now you can see my full image while scrolling and that can really grab folks attention!
Thankyou!
The one thing that my inner luddite cant get my head around is pixel ratio and how to reduce it. this tends to be a real issue on my Mail Chimp newsletters, where gmail (not safari) chooses to nix all my beautifully curated images due to excessive pixel sizes. Whats a quick way to resolve this issue please.
Thanks again for making your way in to my feed
Shaun
Louise Myers says
If I understand you correctly, the images are too large?
If photos, you can size them in your phone. If graphics you made, you should be able to save 2 versions in the graphics program.
OR you’d have to take already-created images into a graphics program and reduce the size. One way to do this is at https://pixlr.com/e/. Choose Image > Image Size. 600 pixels wide should be fine.
Rombout Versluijs says
Does anyone know what this is “Aspect ratio tolerance: 1%”
developers.facebook.com/ads/blog/post/2018/09/27/FB-stories-ads/
Louise Myers says
You can be no more than 1% off the aspect ratio.
Example for 500×500, 505×500 would be minimally acceptable.
Amanda says
Hi there,
How do I make my post tall, as in 1080×1350 for instagram posts? Where is the option to do this as I’d like my post to take up the length of mobile phone screen for this post.
Many thanks in advance for your help…
Louise Myers says
To get exact pixel size, you can crop and resize your image in a design or photo app (use 8×10 shape).
To simply get a tall image, tap the crop icon at lower left when choosing a photo in the IG app.
Details here: Best Instagram Image Size
daveclark966 says
To convert the 16:9 aspect ratio to 4:3 aspect ratio, a professional 16:9 to 4:3 converter, like Avdshare Video Converter is needed.
Louise Myers says
A free one would work as well.
Terra says
Hi Louise,
Thank you so much for all the awesome info you share! Could you help me out with something?!
You mention using my blog width as a base for determining width of my Pins. So say my blog width is 720. I get that the 2:3 ratio would be 720×1080. That works for a Pin, being 720 wide and 1080 tall.
But on my blog, the image isn’t tall – it goes horizontal. So it’s a 720 width and say about 480 tall.
So a blog image with this size and orientation obviously doesn’t work well on Pinterest.
SO my 2 questions are:
1. Should I be making my blog images (esp the Feature image) the tall shape, so that they can be pinned and look good on Pinterest?
2. Otherwise, why do you suggest using our blog width as a width for a Pin? I don’t understand the purpose of doing so. I am sure there is a good one, if you suggest it! I just really want to understand it.
Thank you so much if you can answer this!! 🙂
Terra
Louise Myers says
Are you saying that you create a tall image that gets cropped to horizontal on your blog – and if you try to pin it, it’s still horizontal? Hard for me to understand how this happens (unless this is unique to your theme, as it’s quite odd).
1. Featured image doesn’t matter (I don’t use one). Yes, make your blog images 2:3 ratio – at least ONE that can be pinned.
2. Blog width for a pin is so the file size doesn’t get excessively large. Or narrower works too, as narrow as 600 pixels.
Brad Hepp says
I carefully prepare the images that Facebook will scrape from my blog posts when those posts get linked to on Facebook. The images are always 1200 x 628 pixels. However, I have noticed this frustrating fact: if the blog post is shared on a Facebook PAGE, the aspect ratio will be honored, and the full picture will be scraped and placed, with title and description BELOW the image. That’s great. But if the post is shared on a Facebook PROFILE, the image will get severely cropped (in from the left and right sides), and the remaining central portion of the scraped image will appear to the left of the title and description. I cannot figure out how to avoid this behavior on the part of Facebook. Ideas?
Louise Myers says
This isn’t something I’ve noticed, since I don’t post links on my profile. However, they seem to appear normally when I look at a link on a friend’s profile, or the same link in the news feed. So it’s possible it’s just your view as the profile owner.
This is how links appear in comments though (small image to the side).
Brad Hepp says
Louise, thanks for responding. I was a little confused/confusing. The big problem seems to be what gets displayed on the MOBILE Facebook profile when one links to a web page with a properly-formatted OG image (1200×628 pixels). The mobile view on a profile (not Page) is that severely-cropped image placed to the LEFT of the title and description. The same scraped image is NOT cropped on the mobile display for a Facebook PAGE, but it is zoomed in. All seems fine on the display of properly formatted OG images when viewed on DESKTOP browsers.
Louise Myers says
Oh, I see! According to another reader, “Facebook broke something after one of the past android app updates. Links that are not from ads or pages are showing small thumbnails instead of large.”
Sounds like there’s nothing we can do about it. FB will either fix it, or perhaps it’s the beginning of a larger effort to throttle clicks leading off FB even more.
Robert Harvey says
Hi, I’m not sure you’ll know the answer but I’m hoping you will. We have an e-commerce website and see trying to share on our Facebook business page, whenever we do, the image appears cropped on the top and the bottom showing an uninteresting picture of an item of clothing we are hoping to sell, when we share to our personal page, Facebook leaves the image alone and doesn’t crop it. We have tried also sharing from our personal to our business page once we have the image from the website but that also crops the photo. This is so frustrating as it’s our business page that reaches the public, not our post. Do you have any insight?
Louise Myers says
Are you referring to the way it appears on your business page wall, or in the news feed?
The wall appearance isn’t important as VERY few people visit the actual page, but will find your photo in their news feed.
However you can find the wall dimensions here: Facebook image sizes
Casey says
Thank you for putting this together! I always struggle to explain this. This clearly explains it and that purple image with the arrows to illustrate FB cropping is the best thing since sliced bread. Definitely gonna share this link often.
Louise Myers says
You’re welcome, I’m glad you liked it!
Jay Moore says
Great information, I have had the biggest headache for the last few days trying to post 5 videos that are all under 15 seconds as a INSTAGRAM STORY VIDEO CAROUSEL ad. I tried to publish the AD put keep getting an error message about the aspect ratio HAS to be 1:1 ratio. As a matter of fact, here is the exact quote of the error message “Invalid image aspect ratio: The aspect ratio of the image HAS TO be 1:1.” I am not a graphic designer, and the person that I had to do the work for me is just as confused as I am. I need some help, please!I looked for an app that could easily convert the video to 1:1, but found nothing. I have been trying to get this INSTAGRAM STORY VIDEO CAROUSEL AD up since Monday and it’s officially Friday now. Do you have any suggestions on what I should try now?
Thanks!
Louise Myers says
I can’t recommend anything specific as I haven’t run ads OR converted videos. But googling “convert video aspect ratio” shows a number of options.
Are you sure Story ads are that size though? It makes no sense.
Maddie says
Great article! Is there a good rule for avoiding anything being lost around the edges when video content is viewed on different phones? They all have slightly different screen width and height after all. How much space space should be left?
Thanks!
Louise Myers says
Different phone screens do have different pixel sizes and aspect ratios. Whether that crops the video – I doubt it. I haven’t researched it though.
Sunny says
Hello, it’s me again. I posted the question above. I thought of a solution that works.
I created a sharpening filter in it that seems to work well on my digital artwork.
So it was a matter of adding some sharpness. At least for my work. Thank you. I rushed over to add this solution so you didn’t have to reply. And perhaps it will be useful for other artists. It’s worth a try. There are many sharpening filters one can choose from online, I just happen to like Topaz products.
Thanks. Love your article!
Sunny
Louise Myers says
Glad to hear it!
Sunny says
A very good article. It helps, but my main problem is that my digital artwork loses quality if it is big to start with. Social media sizes it down and that causes a loss in visual quality. It looks beautiful on a desktop at 1080 square. But on Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter it loses fine lines that are crucial to displaying it.
If I make it smaller than 1080 x 1080 – say 750 x 750, it looks better on social media, but that is breaking the Instgram rule. And I want to use Instagram, which I have little experience with.
Will my artwork actually display at 1080×1080 anywhere on social media.
Thank you. I could use any helpful advice.
Sunny
Louise Myers says
2 options:
Use the size it looks best at (be sure you’re checking on multiple devices, not just one phone).
OR
Don’t use fine lines in your Instagram post art.
Astrid says
Thank you for such well written and amazing visuals. I found you last week, lost your link and frantically looked everywhere yesterday. I then I found you (sigh of relief 😉 yay!
You are now bookmarked and that doesn’t happen often.
Keep up the great work! It is really appreciated and I love the updates on the articles. You rock!
Louise Myers says
Huge thanks Astrid ?
Codrut Turcanu says
Keep these eye-opening posts coming, I love ’em!