Social media photo sizes: The ultimate cheat sheet

[INFOGRAPHIC June 2014]

Can you remember the last time you stopped and thought, “It seems like quite a while since Facebook last changed its layout”? Now, I may be stepping out on a limb here, but I’m fairly certain you’re aware of just how often social media platforms update their designs and requirements, including image sizes. For marketers, graphic designers, social media specialists and small business owners, it can be difficult to keep up. So what are the best photo sizes to upload and, better yet, why worry about it?

How Important is Photography?

I think it's widely understood that social media goes hand in hand with marketing/business objectives. But what people may not know is how much more engaging, and therefore useful, an optimized social media profile can be. And what are the building blocks of an engaging profile? Photography, photography, photography.

Before making the above matter-of-fact statement, I researched our own clients’ social media platforms and compiled statistics using Facebook insights specifically to determine the difference in reach and engagement between posting photos (or photos with links) and standard text posts. What I found was that when using photography in posts, the reach increases by 61 percent and the engagement increases by 60 percent. Not too shabby.

Optimized Image Sizes

Posting the correct image sizes not only increases reach and engagement, but it also streamlines your profile and presents your information in a more professional and visually pleasing manner. Pictures that aren’t sized to optimal proportions leave unnecessary dead spaces (gray areas) in your feed or aren’t large enough to grab a reader's attention. Take for example the difference between a 90-pixel-wide photo beside a link and text and compare it to a photo that stretches the width of a Facebook feed at 504 pixels wide. Which catches your eye more? I’m guessing the image on the right.

With this cheat sheet, you now have a good foundation for streamlining your social media profiles and filling the allotted space each platforms gives. One disclaimer I will make is that we created this infographic based on the new Facebook update that employs June 13, 2014 across all business pages, so although you may not see this change currently, you will soon.

Have any questions about social media dimensions? Ask away in the comments section or on our Facebook. And stay tuned because we’ll share more social media resources shortly.