Do you include images in your social media posts? Great! Posts with images typically receive more engagement than text-only posts.
But here's the bummer: Social media image sizes change regularly. This means that your images might look blurry or awkwardly cropped after a platform update.
Want to avoid these issues and ensure your images look pixel-perfect across all your socials? From Facebook and Instagram to TikTok and X (Twitter), this guide covers the essentials you need to know about optimal social media image dimensions.
Keep your images picture-perfect with this quick overview of the most common social media image sizes across different platforms.
While the social media size chart above provides a quick overview of the most common picture sizes for social media, it doesn't provide the full picture. Next, we'll explore the intricacies of image dimensions across five major social media platforms.
Instagram is popular because of its compelling visual content. So, you'll want your images to adhere to sizing requirements if you don't want people to scroll past your pictures. Follow these guidelines to ensure your photos look crisp and clean.
The ideal dimensions for an Instagram profile picture are 320 x 320 pixels at a 1:1 aspect ratio. (However, Instagram profile pictures are displayed at 110 x 110 pixels).
The recommended Instagram story dimensions are 1080 x 1920 pixels with an aspect ratio of 9:16. Instagram Reels also uses the same image dimensions.
You can upload Instagram feed photos in either landscape or portrait orientations. The platform also supports square images. The ideal image size for each of these orientations is as follows:
Regardless of the image you're uploading on Instagram, the recommended image file types for the platform are JPEG and PNG.
Facebook is the world's most popular social media platform with over three billion monthly active users. That means you can't afford to ignore the platform's image sizing requirements if you want to get your content in front of gazillions of eyeballs.
For desktop profile pictures, the recommended image size is 176 x 176 pixels, while for mobile, it's 196 x 196 pixels.
Facebook recommends using an sRGB JPEG cover photo that's 851 x 315 pixels or at least 400 x 150 pixels with an aspect ratio of 16:9.
Facebook will automatically resize your post images to be 500 pixels wide, so you don't have to worry about precise dimensions. However, the recommended dimensions are 1200 x 630 pixels with an aspect ratio of 1.91:1 for horizontal images and 1080 x 1350 pixels with an aspect ratio of 4:5 for vertical images.
Like an Instagram Story, the ideal dimensions for a Facebook one are 1080 x 1920 pixels with an aspect ratio of 9:16.
While X (formerly Twitter) isn't a visually-driven social media platform, adding photos to your X posts (tweets) can boost engagement.
X recommends using a profile photo that's 400 x 400 pixels with a maximum file size of 2MB.
X recommends using header images of 1500 x 500 pixels with a maximum file size of 2MB.
Make sure you adhere to these image size guidelines to prevent X from cropping your in-stream photos (photos that appear within tweets rather than as links).
While TikTok is primarily known for its short video content, in 2022, the platform launched a Photo Mode feature, allowing users to post carousel posts of still images.
TikTok recommends using a profile photo that's at least 20 x 20 pixels. However, it's best to use a higher-quality 200 x 200 pixels image.
The ideal size for TikTok carousel images is 1080 x 1920 pixels with aspect ratios of 1:1 or 9:16.
While LinkedIn isn't as visually heavy as other social media platforms, using photos on the platform can increase engagement. In fact, LinkedIn posts with images receive 2x more comments than those without them. So, you can't neglect the platform's image dimension requirements.
For personal profiles, LinkedIn recommends using a high-resolution profile photo that's between 400 x 400 pixels and 7680 x 4320 pixels with a maximum file size of 8MB.
LinkedIn recommends cover photos for personal profiles be 1584 x 396 pixels with a maximum file size of 8MB. The platform supports images in either JPEG or PNG file formats.
Use these image dimensions to ensure your LinkedIn company page images look pixel-perfect:
Photos included on LinkedIn company pages must be at least 3MB and in either JPEG or PNG file formats.
Pro Tip: Consider working with a company that offers brand design services to conduct a brand audit and optimize your images.
Want to stop potential customers from scrolling past your posts because they look pixelated or improperly cropped? Sign up for PixelPocket today and let our designers do the heavy lifting of optimizing your dimensions for social media posts.
