The Ultimate Guide to Social Media Ad Sizes

Social media marketing is one of the most effective ways to promote your business. 

Each social media website gives you access to a variety of core audiences, which you can convert with the appropriate marketing content. To achieve the best results, you should optimize your images and video to fit the technical specifications of each social network. 

In the rest of this guide, we will cover the image size specifications for the 5 most popular social networks in use today. 

1. Instagram

Fact sheet

• Instagram has around 1 billion active monthly users, making it one of the most popular social networks worldwide.
• Millennials are the main user demographic on Instagram, followed by Gen Z.
• Instagram is mainly used for advertising, with images as the primary media format.

Instagram has multiple features for uploading different kinds of images. Each feature only supports images within certain specifications. Let’s go over each:

Feed images

• Landscape: 1080 x 566 px
• Portrait: 1080 x 1350 px
• Square: 1080 x 1080 px

Stories

• 1080 x 1920 px

Reels

• 1080 x 1920 px

Carousels

• Landscape: 1080 x 566 px
• Portrait: 1080 x 1350 px
• Square: 1080 x 1080 px

Profile image

• 320 x 320 px

Thumbnails

• 161 x 161 px

Ads

• Landscape: 1080 x 566 px
• Square: 1080 x 1080 px

Story ads

• 1080 x 1920 px

2. Facebook

Fact sheet

• With almost 2 billion daily active users, Facebook is the biggest social media website in the world.
• Every demographic imaginable is represented on Facebook, but its most active users are typically Gen X and Millennials.
• Facebook is mainly used for building brand awareness, as well as advertising.

While less focused on images than Instagram overall, Facebook still has extensive image support. Some types of images have less stringent specifications, others require you to be more precise.

Profile images

• 170 x 170 px

Cover images

• Minimum: 400 x 150 px
• Recommended: 851 x 315 px

Timeline images

• Minimum: 600 x 316 px
• Recommended: 1200 x 630 px

Event cover images

• Recommended: 1200 x 628 px

Panorama images

• Maximum: 30 000 px in each dimension, 135 000 px total

Stories

• Recommended: 1080 x 1920 px

Feed ads

• Minimum: 600 x 600 px
• Recommended: 1080 x 1080 px

Right column ads

• Minimum: 254 x 133 px
• Recommended: 1080 x 1080 px

Instant articles

• Minimum: 1080 x 1080 px

Marketplace ads

• Minimum: 1080 x 1080 px

Search ads

• Minimum: 600 x 600 px
• Recommended: 1080 x 1080 px

Sponsored messages

• Recommended: 1080 x 1080 px

Messenger inbox ads

• Minimum: 254 x 133 px
• Recommended: 1080 x 1080 px

Messenger story ads

• Recommended: 1080 x 1080 px

3. Twitter

Fact sheet

• Twitter has around 210 million daily active users.
• It is mostly populated by Millennials and Gen X users.
• Twitter is the ideal place to perform PR, customer service, and community organizing.

Twitter started off as a text-based social media platform, but has since implemented support for images and video. Twitter posts with images get more clicks, so it’s worthwhile to include them even if you’re mainly publishing text.

Profile images

• Minimum: 200 x 200 px
• Recommended: 400 x 400 px

Header images

• Recommended: 1500 x 1500 px

In-stream images

• Minimum: 600 x 335 px
• Recommended: 1600 x 1900 px

Card images

• Minimum: 120 x 120 px

Multi-Image tweets

• Minimum: 600 x 335 px

Website card images

• Minimum: 800 x 418 px
• Recommended: 800 x 800 px

App card images

• Minimum: 800 x 418 px
• Recommended: 800 x 800 px

Carousels

• Minimum: 800 x 418 px
• Recommended: 800 x 800 px

Direct message cards

• Minimum: 800 x 418 px

Conversation cards

• Minimum: 800 x 418 px

4. LinkedIn

Fact sheet

• LinkedIn has over 774 million active users across the globe.
• Its core audience is equal parts Baby Boomers, Gen X, and Millennials.
• LinkedIn is mainly used for building business relationships with working professionals.

Images are not LinkedIn’s main feature, but they can go a long way towards improving your marketing results. LinkedIn is less strict about image size than other social media websites on our list, but there are certain best practices you should follow.

Profile images

• Recommended: 400 x 400 px

Profile cover images

• Recommended: 1584 x 396 px

Blog post link images

• Recommended: 1200 x 627 px

Link previews in updates

• Recommended: 1200 x 627 px

Company logo ads

• 100 x 100 px

Spotlight ads logo

• 100 x 100 px

Spotlight ads background images

• 300 x 250 px

Sponsored content images

• 1200 x 627 px

Sponsored content carousel images

• 1080 x 1080 px

Company logo

• 300 x 300 px

Page cover

• 1128 x 191 px

Life tab main image

• 1128 x 376 px

Life tab custom module images

• 502 x 282 px

Life tab company images

• 900 x 600 px

Square logo

• Minimum: 60 x 60 px

5. Pinterest

Fact sheet

• Pinterest has around 444 million monthly active users across the world.
• It is dominated by Millennials as its main audience, followed by Gen Z, Gen X, and Baby Boomers.
• Pinterest focuses exclusively on images, making it the perfect platform for visual advertising.

Pinterest has few limitation when it comes to posting images – practically any size or aspect ratio can work. With that being said, here are some size recommendations to help you stand out.

Profile image

• Recommended: 165 x 165 px

Profile cover image

• Minimum: 800 x 450 px

Pins

• Minimum: 1000 x 1000 px
• Recommended: 1000 x 1500 px

Story pins

• Recommended: 1080 x 1920 px

Collection pins

• Minimum: 1000 x 1000 px
• Recommended: 1000 x 1500 px

Fleets

• Recommended: 1080 x 1920 px

App install ads

• Recommended: 1000 x 1500 px

Carousel ads

• Minimum: 1000 x 1000 px
• Recommended: 1000 x 1500 px

Shopping ads

• Recommended: 1000 x 1500 px

Conclusion

To get the most out of social media advertising, you should always follow image size guidelines for each platform you’re using. This will help you simplify content production, and it ensures your images will look great on any browsing device.