Social Media Cheat Sheet: Tools & Tips for Perfectly Sized Social Media Images

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These days, it’s no secret that high-quality images are important for any marketing strategy, particularly when it comes to social media. Images not only help brands stand out in busy social news feeds, but they also boost engagement and build brand awareness—and their importance is growing.

According to a WebDAM infographic, 84% of all communication will be visual by 2018. So, there’s no better time than the present to ensure you’re creating and sharing top-notch imagery. And that starts with following sizing best practices for each channel.

To help you do just that, below is a quick cheat sheet for sizing your images for optimal impact, complete with dimensions and some examples. In addition, you’ll also find some helpful tools that can help your resize, edit or create images.

Sizing Best Practices

Since each network has different features and layouts, each has its own sizing best practices.

Follow these sizing guidelines to ensure that any images you share aren’t cut off or distorted when they display, your profile and cover photos make your page look top-notch. We’ve also included some examples of brands doing it right.

Facebook

Profile photo: 180 x 180

Cover photo: 828 x 315

Shared image or link: 1,200 x 630

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Instagram

Profile photo: 110 x 110

Shared image: 1,080 x 1,080

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LinkedIn

Profile photo: 400 x 400

Background image: 1400 x 425

Shared image: 700 x 400

Company cover photo: 1536 x 768

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Twitter

Profile image: 400 x 400

Header image: 1,500 x 500

Shared image: 1,024 x 512 (maximum to appear expanded)

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Pinterest

Profile image: 165 x 165

Board covers: 217 x 146

Shared image: 735 x 1,102

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Google+

Profile photo: 250 x 250

Cover photo: 1080 x 608

Shared image: 497 x 373 (displays as this size)

Shared link: 150 x 150

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Sizing & Editing Tools

Landscape

Landscape from SproutSocial aims to streamline the photo resizing process for each social network. It’s pretty simple. You upload your photo, select the social network you want to size it for and then crop.

landscape



Pixlr

If you’re looking for a wide ranging editing tool that will also allow you to custom size and image, Pixlr is a good option. In my opinion, using this tool is easiest if you have a little photo editing experience, but nonetheless still an option if you’re willing to take a little time to feel it out. Also, there is a mobile version, too, which makes it a convenient option.

pixlr

Other simple sizing tools include:

Creation Tools

Canva

For those without Photoshop or InDesign chops, Canva is a fantastic tool for helping you create professional and compelling images. Not only is it easy to use, but it also offers different templates for Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, as well as many other options.

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Adobe Spark

Adobe Spark, formerly Adobe post, is another easy to use tool that allows you to create graphics quickly. One feature that I personally like is the Inspiration Gallery, allowing you to select a category and get ideas for creating your own image.

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Stencil

Stencil, formerly known as Share Image As, is a tool designed specifically for creating images to boost social media engagement, offering more than 30 custom sizes to fit different social network guidelines, as well as templates, and thousands of graphics, photos and icons to use. There’s also a Chrome extension that makes it easy to create images on the go. There is a free version, but the Unlimited version that includes all the pro features is just $18 a month.

stencil

Other creation and design tools include:

  • PicMonkey
  • BeFunky
  • PowerPoint (Yes! It’s easy to use and probably already on your desktop.)

When Things Change

Like everything in the digital marketing world, these best practices are likely to evolve and tools will come and go. We’ll continue to update this page to give you the latest guidelines and tools.

What is your go-to image resizing, editing or creation tool? Tell us in the comments section below.


 

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