Best Social Media Image Sizes for 2020

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Images are an integral part of social media. With every social media update, you’ll see that more attention is called to the visuals. As a brand, it’s important that you choose high quality, original photos to add to your social media channels. These visuals gain attention, communicate information, increase engagement and build loyalty.

An important factor when posting images to social media is their size. You can choose a great photo, but if it’s not sized correctly, it won’t look amazing to your followers. Whether you use social media for fun or promotion, here are the image sizes you’ll want to follow.

Facebook

Facebook has a lot of different image sizes you’ll need to know. It accepts JPG and PNG files in the following Recommended (ideal) sizes:

  • Profile photo: 180 x 180
  • Cover photo: 820 x 312, maximum file size 100KB
  • Timeline/newsfeed shared image: 1200 x 630
  • Timeline/newsfeed shared link: 1200 x 628
  • Highlighted image: 1200 x 717
  • Event image: 1920 x 1080

Instagram

The great thing about Instagram is that it practically does everything for you. It only accepts JPG files in the following Recommended sizes:

  • Profile picture: 110 x 110
  • Photo thumbnails: 161 x 161
  • Photo size: 1080 x 1080
  • Instagram Stories: 1080 x 1920

Twitter

Twitter allows uploads for JPG, PNG and GIF files. Here are the Recommended sizes:

  • Profile photo: 400 x 400, maximum file size 2MB
  • Header photo: 1500 x 500, maximum file size 5MB
  • In-stream photo: 506 x 253, maximum file size for photos 5MB, maximum file size for GIFs 3MB

LinkedIn

Like Facebook, LinkedIn has a lot of different image sizes. You can upload PNG, JPG and GIF files to LinkedIn in the following Recommended sizes:

  • Personal profile photo: 400 x 400, maximum file size 8MB
  • Personal background picture: 1584 x 396, maximum file size 4MB
  • Company logo: 300 x 300, maximum file size 4MB
  • Square logo: 60 x 60, maximum file size 2MB
  • Company cover image: 1536 x 768, maximum file size 4MB
  • Banner: 646 x 220, maximum file size 2MB
  • Hero photo: 1536 x 768, maximum file size 2MB
  • Shared image: 1104 x 736

Do I Really Need to Worry about Image Sizes on Social Media?

The sizes listed above are ideal when posting to social media. But they are only suggestions and not requirements. So, if you’re posting to your personal channel, you don’t need to worry about image sizes. However, if you use social media to market and promote your brand, you’ll want to follow the recommended settings.

Fortunately, it’s easy to resize images using an online tool like Canva. Or you can do so manually. Taking this extra step ensures that you have a beautiful, professional and consistent profile that captures attention and builds brand loyalty.