Social media is one of the biggest mediums for branding and promotion. The biggest platforms, like Facebook, Twitter and Youtube are used by millions of users around the world, which is why this channel is irresistible for companies. However, marketing on social media is not like traditional marketing. Social media users have a different behavior. As a company, you need to understand that behavior and market your product accordingly.
When it comes to promotion, visual content dominates the social media platforms. Whether it is a video or an image, users are most likely to interact with the content if it contains some visuals. For the best result of your visual content and for optimum quality of the content, social media platforms have set some rules regarding it. One of these rules has to do it with the dimensions or aspect ratio. Here are some rules of the top platforms.
Profile Picture: Recommended is 180 x 180 px. It will appear as 170 x 170 px on Desktop, 128 x 128 px on smartphones, and 36 x 36 on other phones. It will appear as 32 x 32 px through Facebook.
Cover Photos: 820 x 312 px for Desktop and 640 x 360 px for smartphones. It must be at least 400 x 150 px.
Post Images: Recommended is 1200 x 630 px. It will appear at maximum 470 px width in the feed and 504 px width on the page. The aspect ratio is between 9:16 to 16:9.
Shared Link Images: Recommended is 1200 x 628 px. For a square photo, it will appear at minimum 154 px width in the feed and 116 px width on the page with 1:1 aspect ratio. For a rectangular photo, it will appear at minimum 470 px width in the feed and 484 px width on the page with 1.91:1 aspect ratio.
Highlighted Images: Recommended size is 843 x 504 px.
Event Images: Recommended size is 1920 x 1080 px. But it will be scaled down to 470 x 174 px for newsfeed appearance.
Videos: Recommended aspect ratio for videos is 4:3 with minimum 600 px of width.
When designing images for using on Facebook, it is best to use colors associated with your brand to maintain consistency. Don’t use stock images or generic illustrations as users tend to scroll past these types of images without even stopping for a second.