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Social Media Image Sizes in 2021: Guidelines for Posts on 5 Major Networks

Ash Read
Ash Read Editorial @ Buffer
Summary

8 min read
You will learn

Summary

Instagram is the go-to place for hundreds of millions of people to share their photos, videos, and stories every single day. And the platform has tons of opportunities for you to build an engaged audience for your small business.

You will learn

  • The ideal image sizes for Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and more
  • Specific pixel heights and widths for all the major social networks and all their various content types
  • How to crop and resize images to fit the ideal aspect ratios

Awkwardly cropped photos and pixelated images are a fast way to kill your social media engagement. But figuring out social media image sizes for each platform is tricky, especially considering how many different image options each platform offers. For this post, we’ll focus specifically on the social media images you share with your updates.

Using the ideal image size for each type of post on every platform is crucial. If you want to prevent people from scrolling right past your content, you have to share eye-catching images that display well in the feed.

Best social media image sizes overview

Here’s a quick look at the recommended image sizes for each social media platform. Click the links to jump to each section for details and examples. All dimensions refer to width and height in pixels.

Best image size for Facebook

  • Sharing horizontal images: 1,200 x 628 pixels
  • Sharing vertical images: 1,080 x 1,350 pixels
  • Sharing links with an image: 1,200 x 628 pixels
  • Sharing Stories: 1,080 x 1,920 pixels

Best image size for Instagram

  • Sharing square images: 1,080 x 1,080 pixels
  • Sharing horizontal images: 1,080 x 566 pixels
  • Sharing vertical images: 1,080 x 1,350 pixels
  • Sharing Stories: 1,080 x 1,920 pixels

Best image size for Twitter

  • Sharing a single horizontal image: 1,200 x 675 pixels
  • Sharing multiple images: 1,200 x 675 pixels
  • Sharing links with an image: 800 x 418 pixels

Best image size for LinkedIn

  • Sharing horizontal images to company page or personal profile: 1,104 x 736 pixels
  • Sharing links with an image to a company page or personal profile: 1,200 x 628 pixels

Best image size for Pinterest

  • Sharing images: 1000 x 1500 pixels

Best image sizes for Facebook

  • Horizontal (landscape) images: 1,200 x 628 pixels
  • Vertical (portrait) images: 1,080 x 1,350 pixels
  • Links with an image: 1,200 x 628 pixels
  • Facebook Stories: 1,080 x 1,920 pixels

Facebook post image size

The Facebook recommended image size for sharing images and sharing links with an image is 1,200 x 628 pixels.

Whether you’re sharing landscape, portrait, or square images, Facebook will resize it to 500 pixels wide and scale the height accordingly. The good news here is that you don’t have to worry about your image size when sharing images on Facebook. Almost all images will look great on your audience’s News Feed—we say almost because Facebook still requires an aspect ratio between 9:16 to 16:9.

Fetch Eyewear uses both portrait and landscape photos on its Facebook page.

When you share a link to Facebook, Facebook will show an image in the link preview. Facebook looks at the Open Graph tags for the link, specifically the og:image tag, which specifies the image that Facebook should use when sharing in the News Feed.

You can add the og:image tag manually into the <head> section on every page of your website, or you can try out aplugin like Yoast SEO for WordPress, which handles the code and implementation for you. Here at Buffer, we’re big fans of Yoast.

For a carousel post, each image is cropped to fit a 300 x 300-pixel square.

Facebook Story image size

Because Facebook Stories take up the entire mobile screen,the recommended Facebook Story image size is 1,080 x 1,920 pixels. Your profile photo and some buttons will appear at the top of your Stories, so be sure to keep that in mind when designing your images.

The Body Coach centers text so it’s not covered up by the profile photo or buttons.

Best image sizes for Instagram

  • Square images: 1,080 x 1,080 pixels
  • Horizontal (landscape) images: 1,080 x 566 pixels
  • Vertical (portrait) images: 1,080 x 1,350 pixels
  • Instagram Stories: 1,080 x 1,920 pixels

Instagram feed image size

All Instagram posts have the same width (1,080 pixels), which is the size of your phone screen. If your image is less than 320 pixels wide, Instagram will enlarge it, and it might look pixelated. We provide tips for when (and why) to use each image size in the Instagram image size guide linked above.

Examples of different Instagram image sizes from Garden Coffee San Diego, Wistia, and Stardust Cellars.

Instagram Stories image size

Since Instagram Stories take up the full phone screen, the ideal size is 1,080 pixels wide x 1,920 pixels tall (aspect ratio of 9:16).

West of Kerchief Co and Toucan Rescue Ranch make full use of the screen in Instagram Stories. Both accounts keep logos and text away from the top and bottom of the screen where profile photos and buttons could obscure the content.

When designing your Instagram Stories, remember to keep the 250 pixels of the top and bottom of the image free of text and logos because that’s where your profile photo and Instagram buttons will be.

To make creating great Instagram Stories super easy for you, we built Stories Creator. Every Stories image you create with the tool is perfectly sized for Instagram Stories. We even show you the Instagram interface while you’re designing so that you can see where your profile photo and the Instagram buttons are. Give it a go!

Best image sizes for Twitter

  • Single horizontal image: 1,200 x 675 pixels
  • Multiple images: 1,200 x 675 pixels
  • Links with an image: 800 x 418 pixels

Twitter post image size

On Twitter, images with 2:1 and 3:4 aspect ratios will show in full within user timelines. This update was rolled out in May 2021.

Images on Twitter now show in full on timelines. 

On Twitter profiles on desktop, images remain cropped and the ideal size for these images is 1,200 pixels wide x 675 pixels tall (or an aspect ratio of 16:9). The minimum size is 600 pixels wide by 335 pixels tall, but larger images will look better when your followers click to expand the image.

Although sticking to the recommended image sizes is your best bet, Twitter uses machine learning to crop your images to show the most interesting part of your photos. This is especially helpful for Twitter posts with multiple images because Twitter will crop the photos differently depending on the total number of images.

For example, here’s what cropped images will look like on mobile:

With the majority of your Twitter image posts being seen in the timeline, the best strategy might be focus on how images look in the timeline, rather than optimizing specifically for how an image looks on your profile on desktop.

You can also add GIFs to Twitter posts, either by uploading them or through Twitter’s built-in GIF integration.

Twitter post size when paired with a link

For link preview images (also known as website image cards), the ideal image size is 800 x 418 pixels.

Uptick uses a website image card to pair an image with a link on Twitter. On desktop, the preview includes a description, while on mobile, users will only see the image and title.

The card shows a headline, description (on desktop), link, and photo when you share a URL from a site that contains the appropriate Twitter Cards code. All this information is pulled via HTML tags, often the same ones that are being used by Facebook to display links. You can also use the Yoast SEO WordPress plugin for this.

If you’re curious how your images might look with Twitter Cards, you can enter your link into Twitter’s free card validator to get a quick preview.

Best image sizes for LinkedIn

  • Horizontal (landscape) image: 1,104 x 736 pixels
  • Links with an image: 1,200 x 628 pixels

LinkedIn post image size

LinkedIn recommends an aspect ratio between 3:1 and 2:3 and images with at least 552 x 368 pixels to avoid cropping. However, we suggest doubling the dimensions—1,104 x 736 pixels—so your images won’t appear pixelated on larger screens.

Much like Facebook, LinkedIn automatically crops and centers photos that go beyond the recommended dimensions, but LinkedIn is more vague about how that cropping happens. We’ve found that as long as your text is centered, many different image sizes will display well in the LinkedIn feed. Take a look at these two image posts: A square image (1080 x 1080 pixels) and a rectangle image (1,536 x 806 pixels) both show up nicely in the feed:

Both square and rectangle images work well on LinkedIn.

If you’re sharing an image alongside a link, the recommended image size is slightly different—1,200 x 628 pixels.

Best image size for Pinterest

  • Image: 1000 x 1500 pixels

Pinterest is unique in that it heavily favors long, vertical images. After years of cropping photo width to 800 pixels, Pinterest now recommends 1,000 x 1,500 pixels, which is a 2:3 aspect ratio.

Staying within the 2:3 aspect ratio is key. Pinterest told Buffer that the Pinterest algorithm will limit distribution for both low-resolution images and images longer than 1,500 pixels.

Social media image sizes matter

What’s the point of making and sharing a nice image if it shows up cropped or pixelated in people’s feeds? On social media, you only get a second to grab people’s attention. Creating eye-catching images in the proper size for each social media network can make all the difference.

With Buffer, you can create custom posts for each social media network and make sure you attach the properly sized each image for every platform. Get started with for free today.

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