Social Media Image Sizes: The Smoking Gun Cheat Sheet

Nothing says “we didn’t really try” like a logo with its head cropped off or a campaign image stretched until it looks like a fairground mirror. Getting your social media image sizes right is one of the easiest wins in social, and one of the most commonly missed.

This social media cheat sheet gives you the right dimensions for every major platform, the best image size for all social media if you only want to make one asset, and the habits our social media marketing team uses to keep brand content looking sharp wherever it lands. Bookmark it, share it with your designer, and stop guessing.

Why Social Media Image Sizes Matter

Every platform displays images differently. Upload something at the wrong size and the platform will crop it, compress it or squeeze it to fit, and it rarely chooses the bit you wanted to keep. Text gets cut off, faces lose their foreheads, and your product disappears out of frame.

That matters for two reasons. First, people judge brands on what they see in the feed in a fraction of a second, and a blurry or badly cropped image looks careless. Second, the platforms reward content that fits their format. Portrait images take up more screen space on a phone, which means more attention and a better chance of a like, comment, share, or click. If social is meant to drive leads, traffic, or sales for your business, correctly sized creative is part of the job, not a nice-to-have.

For the bigger picture on planning, publishing and measuring social, read our complete guide to social media marketing.

Social Media Image Sizes Cheat Sheet

Instagram Image Sizes

Portrait is king on Instagram. At 1080 x 1350 px (4:5), a portrait post fills more of the screen than a square one, and since Instagram switched profile grids from squares to a taller 3:4 crop, portrait images also look better on your profile. Keep the key subject and any text away from the top and bottom edges so nothing important gets trimmed in the grid view. Stories and Reels are full-screen vertical at 1080 x 1920 px.

Facebook Image Sizes

Facebook now favours the same 4:5 portrait format as Instagram for feed posts, which makes cross-posting simpler. Your cover photo is the awkward one: 851 x 315 px on desktop, but it is cropped more tightly on mobile, so keep logos and text in the centre.

LinkedIn Image Sizes

On LinkedIn, landscape images at 1200 x 627 px (1.91:1) suit link shares, while square 1200 x 1200 px images take up more of the feed for native posts. Your company page banner is long and thin at 1128 x 191 px, so keep it simple. If thought leadership and corporate profiling are part of your plan, start with a sharp, on-brand LinkedIn presence.

TikTok Image Sizes

TikTok is vertical, full stop. Videos, cover images and photo carousels should all be 1080 x 1920 px (9:16). TikTok’s interface overlays captions, buttons and your username, so keep anything important out of the top 250 px and bottom 350 px of the frame. Our TikTok marketing team plans every asset around those safe zones from the start.

X, YouTube, Pinterest, and Threads

On X, 1600 x 900 px (16:9) is the standard in-stream image. For YouTube, your thumbnail at 1280 x 720 px does most of the selling, so treat it as an advert for the video. Pinterest still rewards tall 2:3 Pins at 1000 x 1500 px. Threads follows Instagram’s lead, with 1080 x 1350 px portrait images recommended.

Image File Types, File Sizes and Resolution

Pixel dimensions matter far more than DPI on screen, so do not worry about 72 vs 300 DPI for social. Focus on these instead:

• Use JPG for photos and PNG for graphics, logos and anything with text, as PNG keeps edges crisp.
• Keep files small. Aim for under 1MB where you can, and check each platform’s limit (X caps images at 5MB, for example). Large files load slowly, and platforms compress them hard, which is where blurriness creeps in.
• Export in the sRGB colour profile so your brand colours look the same on every phone and screen.
• Upload at the recommended size or slightly larger. Scaling a small image up always loses quality, so for logos and graphics, work from vector files.

How to Keep Your Social Images Looking Sharp

Design for Mobile First

Most social browsing happens on phones, so judge every asset on a phone screen before it goes live. Text that reads fine on a desktop monitor can be unreadable in a feed. Keep image copy short and large, and keep important content inside the platform’s safe zones.

Build Templates Once

Set up templates for each format in your design tool, with safe zones and brand elements locked in. It saves time, keeps your feed consistent, and lets anyone on the team produce on-brand assets. This is a big part of how our content creation team turns one shoot into a full suite of platform-ready assets.

Test Before You Post

Preview on both iOS and Android, and on desktop for LinkedIn and Facebook. Check the grid view on Instagram and the thumbnail on YouTube, not just the post itself.

Check The Specs Every Quarter

Platforms change their formats with little warning. Instagram’s switch to a 3:4 profile grid is a recent example. Check the platforms’ own help centres or your scheduling tool every quarter, and update your templates when something shifts. We keep this social media cheat sheet updated, so it is worth bookmarking.

Need Help With Your Social Content?

The right image size helps your content get seen. The right idea gets it remembered. At Smoking Gun, we create social content for ballsy brands with brains, from influencer marketing and UGC to always-on social, and we measure what it delivers for the business. Take a look at our work, then talk to us about your next campaign.

Want to know more about where social is heading? Read how social media has changed marketing and how PR supports content marketing.

FAQs

What is the best image size for all social media?

No single size works everywhere, but 1080 x 1080 px (1:1) is accepted by every major platform without heavy cropping. For better results, make a 4:5 portrait version for feeds and a 9:16 vertical version for Stories and short-form video.

What image sizes should I use for social media ads?

Paid social mostly follows the same ratios as organic posts. Use 1:1 (1080 x 1080 px) or 4:5 (1080 x 1350 px) for feed ads on Facebook and Instagram, and 9:16 (1080 x 1920 px) for Stories and Reels placements. LinkedIn single image ads work at 1200 x 627 px (landscape), 1200 x 1200 px (square) or 720 x 900 px (vertical). 

If you’re running one campaign across several placements, upload a version in each ratio so the platform doesn’t crop your creative for you.

How do I stop Instagram reducing the quality of my images?

Instagram compresses images on upload, especially over mobile data. Go into the app’s settings, find the Media quality section and turn on “Upload at highest quality”. Upload at exactly 1080 px wide, because Instagram resizes anything larger. Post over Wi-Fi where you can, and export in sRGB so your colours aren’t shifted when the image is compressed.

Sarah Twyman

Client Services Director and Head of Consumer

Sarah is a dynamic and results-oriented communications leader with over 20 years of experience in consumer PR and client services in London and Manchester. With a proven track record of helping brands grow through strategic comms she is adept at managing high-performance teams and driving client success across various sectors.

Sarah’s Blog Posts Contact Me