2026 Social Media Image and Video Sizes Guide

Social media content can look excellent in the design file and still appear cropped, compressed or poorly positioned after publication. Each platform handles profile images, covers, feed posts, vertical videos, thumbnails and business photos differently.

This guide brings together practical social media image sizes, social media video sizes, caption guidance, hashtags, content formats that can attract reach, and useful posting-time benchmarks for Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, X, TikTok, Pinterest, Threads, Snapchat and Google Business Profile.

Where a platform specifies an aspect ratio rather than one compulsory resolution, we use a high-quality production size that fits that ratio. Platform interfaces and cropping behavior change, so important logos, people, headlines and calls to action should always remain inside a safe central area.

For posting times, treat the windows below as starting points rather than guarantees. Current large-scale studies show that timing can improve initial distribution, but content quality, relevance, retention, consistency and audience behavior matter more. Sprout Social's 2026 dataset is based on nearly two billion engagements and records its recommendations in the audience's local time. For a Ugandan audience, that means the same hours can be tested in East Africa Time (EAT, UTC+3).

For businesses planning campaigns rather than isolated posts, Trophy Developers' social media marketing service connects platform-specific creative, content planning, distribution and measurable customer action.

LinkedIn and YouTube are particularly valuable when a business needs more than casual visibility. LinkedIn supports professional authority, B2B credibility and decision-maker discovery; YouTube can combine search visibility, educational video and long-term content discovery.

LinkedIn image sizes

Use 400 × 400 px for a LinkedIn Page logo. LinkedIn's current Page documentation recommends 1512 × 256 px for the company cover image. Personal profile cover images use 1584 × 396 px.

For normal photo posts, LinkedIn recommends at least 552 × 276 px and recommends 1080 px width for better quality. Supported photo ratios range from 3:1 to 4:5. For website link previews, use 1200 × 627 px, 1.91:1.

A 1080 × 1350 px portrait graphic therefore works well as a high-quality 4:5 feed asset.

LinkedIn video sizes

LinkedIn currently supports native video from 256 × 144 through 4096 × 2304, with aspect ratios from 1:2.4 to 2.4:1. Files may be up to 5 GB and standard uploads can run up to 15 minutes.

For practical production, 1920 × 1080 px, 16:9 works well for landscape business video. Vertical videos can use 1080 × 1920 px when the content is intended for mobile-first viewing.

LinkedIn captions and hashtags

LinkedIn posts support up to 3,000 characters.

For business content, the strongest opening should appear before the reader needs to expand the post. Use a clear problem, observation, result or useful statement instead of opening with corporate filler.

There is no need to use a large hashtag block. 1–3 tightly relevant hashtags is normally enough to describe the discipline, industry or subject.

What LinkedIn content can get reach faster?

LinkedIn is a good example of why every platform needs its own content strategy. In Buffer's 2026 dataset, document/carousel posts achieved substantially higher median engagement than video, images, links or text. Video ranked second.

For Trophy Developers' target audience, strong formats include project breakdowns, business lessons, original research, website audits, executive insights, PDF carousels, transformation case studies and concise founder-led video.

Best time to post on LinkedIn

Sprout Social's current data shows the strongest periods primarily Tuesday through Thursday between 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. local time.

That aligns well with B2B audiences because owners, executives, managers and professional teams are active during the working day.

YouTube image sizes

Use a square channel image and a 2560 × 1440 px channel banner. YouTube explicitly recommends a banner of at least 2560 × 1440 px for display across devices.

The current YouTube recommendation for standard video thumbnails is 3840 × 2160 px, 16:9. For Shorts thumbnails, YouTube recommends 2160 × 3840 px, 9:16.

That is an important update from older guides that still recommend 1280 × 720 px as the primary thumbnail target.

YouTube video sizes

The standard YouTube desktop player uses 16:9. A strong HD production format remains 1920 × 1080 px; YouTube also supports 4K at 3840 × 2160 and other resolutions.

For vertical Shorts, produce at 1080 × 1920 px, 9:16.

YouTube titles, descriptions and hashtags

YouTube video titles can contain up to 100 characters and descriptions up to 5,000 characters.

YouTube allows hashtags in titles and descriptions. Up to three relevant hashtags may be displayed around the video title, while content containing more than 60 hashtags has all of its hashtags ignored.

That makes hashtag stuffing unnecessary. Put the actual search topic in the title, opening description, spoken content and video itself.

What YouTube content can get reach faster?

Shorts can expose a business to people who have never visited its channel. Long-form content serves a different purpose: tutorials, comparisons, demonstrations, reviews, explanations and case studies can continue attracting search and suggested-video traffic long after publication.

Thumbnails remain crucial. YouTube says 90% of its best-performing videos use custom thumbnails.

Best time to post on YouTube

Buffer's analysis of 1.8 million YouTube videos found Sunday at 10 a.m. strongest for long-form content. Shorts behaved differently, with Friday at 4 p.m., 6 p.m. and 7 p.m. taking the leading slots.

Use these as local-time starting points and compare them against YouTube Studio's When your viewers are on YouTube data.

For B2B teams publishing expert material, this works best when social publishing is connected to an owned content marketing programme rather than treated as a standalone posting calendar.

X remains heavily oriented toward real-time information and conversation. TikTok is predominantly a full-screen video discovery environment. Publishing the same creative and caption to both without adaptation wastes the strengths of each network.

X image sizes

X officially recommends 400 × 400 px for profile images and 1500 × 500 px for header images. X also warns that approximately 60 pixels at the top and bottom of a header can be cropped depending on screen and browser dimensions.

For feed graphics, useful production formats include 1080 × 1440 px portrait, 1080 × 1080 px square and 1200 × 675 px landscape.

X video sizes

For strong production quality, use 1920 × 1080 px for landscape video and 1080 × 1920 px for vertical video. Square video can use 1080 × 1080 px or another high-quality 1:1 export.

X captions and hashtags

Standard X posts support 280 characters. Premium accounts can create longer posts of up to 4,000 characters.

X itself recommends using no more than two hashtags per post as a best practice.

Short, direct copy normally suits the platform better than transferring a 2,000-character Instagram caption into X.

What X content can get reach faster?

Text still matters. Buffer's 2026 study found text posts delivering the highest median engagement on X, with images only slightly behind. Links performed substantially worse.

Timely commentary, useful statistics, concise observations, live-event posts, original screenshots, charts and strong visual evidence can therefore outperform generic promotional material.

Best time to post on X

Sprout Social currently identifies Tuesday through Thursday, 12–6 p.m. local time as a strong X window. Buffer's separate dataset found strong activity in weekday mornings, which reinforces why your own account analytics should ultimately determine the schedule.

TikTok image sizes

TikTok supports photo and carousel content, but static image specifications vary by surface. For a reusable square source asset, 1080 × 1080 px provides sufficient production quality.

Do not treat 640 × 640 px as the ideal creative size simply because it appears in some TikTok technical specifications; it is a supported minimum in specific advertising environments.

TikTok video sizes

For normal full-screen TikTok production, use 1080 × 1920 px, 9:16.

TikTok's current advertising documentation recommends vertical video and accepts 9:16 at 540 × 960 px or greater for some in-feed placements. Other current TikTok documentation uses 720 × 1280 as a supported or recommended minimum, depending on placement. For production, 1080 × 1920 remains the safer high-quality canvas.

Landscape 1280 × 720 px, 16:9 and square 640 × 640 px, 1:1 are supported in some TikTok ad environments, but businesses should prioritize vertical creative when designing specifically for TikTok.

TikTok captions and hashtags

TikTok's native caption field is generous, but a long allowance does not mean a long caption is always beneficial. Front-load the topic, hook and searchable phrase.

For organic content, use a small number of specific hashtags that explain the subject, industry, location or audience rather than filling the caption with generic discovery tags.

Also distinguish organic publishing from advertising: TikTok's current non-Spark advertising captions do not support hashtags or clickable @ mentions, while Spark Ads inherit the original organic caption.

What TikTok content can get reach faster?

TikTok remains a video-led network. Buffer's current study found video achieving 77% more median engagement than TikTok photo/carousel content in its dataset.

For businesses, useful formats include demonstrations, transformations, answers to specific questions, short tutorials, process footage, myths versus facts, customer problems, product use and creator-style explanations.

The first seconds matter. Establish what the viewer is about to gain before giving background.

Best time to post on TikTok

Current large-scale studies do not produce one identical answer. Buffer's 2026 dataset found strong performance in weekend mornings, while its broader marketing guidance also highlights evening consumption.

For a Uganda-based audience, test both 8–11 a.m. on weekends and 6–10 p.m. on active weekdays, then retain the schedule supported by TikTok Analytics.

Pinterest works more like a visual search and planning engine than a conventional chronological social feed. Threads, meanwhile, combines public conversation with an increasingly visual recommendation system. Their content strategies should therefore be different.

Pinterest image sizes

Pinterest officially recommends 1000 × 1500 px, 2:3 for standard image Pins. Pins taller than 2:3 can be cut off in the feed.

Use 1000 × 1000 px for square Pins.

Pinterest Business profile covers must be at least 800 × 450 px, and Pinterest recommends a horizontal 16:9 image.

Pinterest video sizes

Pinterest recommends 1080 × 1920 px, 9:16 for full-bleed video. It also accepts ratios including 1:2, 2:3, 3:4, 4:5 and 1:1. Video Pins can run from four seconds up to five minutes.

Pinterest titles, descriptions and hashtags

Pinterest supports titles up to 100 characters and descriptions up to 800 characters. Pinterest explicitly states that descriptions help its algorithm understand relevance, even though descriptions may not always appear directly in feed views.

Pinterest allows hashtags in descriptions, but keyword relevance should take priority. Pinterest also lets creators tag up to 10 related topics, helping relevant searchers discover the Pin.

For SEO-minded Pinterest publishing, write descriptive phrases such as website design ideas for small businesses, Uganda tourism website inspiration or healthcare website design naturally into titles and descriptions.

What Pinterest content can get reach faster?

Do not restrict Pinterest to still images. Buffer's current dataset found video Pins achieving a 5.75% median engagement rate compared with 3.15% for images.

Tutorials, checklists, before-and-after work, infographics, product demonstrations, step-by-step processes and evergreen educational content fit the platform particularly well.

Best time to post on Pinterest

Current Sprout Social data identifies Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. local time as a strong starting window.

Because Pinterest content can remain discoverable much longer than a normal social feed post, keyword relevance and evergreen usefulness can matter more than publishing at one perfect minute.

Threads image sizes

Threads does not require one universal organic-image pixel size in the way a traditional ad specification might. For production, use 1080 × 1350 px for portrait images, 1080 × 1080 px for square content and around 1200 × 675 px for landscape material.

These are recommended design canvases, not hard Threads pixel limits.

Threads video sizes

For mobile-first vertical material, use 1080 × 1920 px, 9:16 as the working canvas.

Meta's core Threads post format supports text, links, photos and video. Standard Threads posts support up to 500 characters, while Meta subsequently introduced optional text attachments of up to 10,000 characters for longer writing.

Threads captions and topic tags

Threads uses topic tags rather than encouraging long hashtag strings. A post can include one topic tag, giving businesses a reason to choose the most relevant subject instead of attempting to cover every keyword.

Use the main post copy to establish context and keywords naturally.

What Threads content can get reach faster?

Threads may be text-led in appearance, but visual content is increasingly important. Buffer's 2026 analysis found video leading engagement, followed by images, with both outperforming text and link posts in its dataset.

Strong formats include concise industry observations, questions that invite informed responses, visual case-study snippets, screenshots, short explanatory videos and posts tied to relevant ongoing conversations.

Best time to post on Threads

Buffer's current data shows a useful weekday window of approximately 6–11 a.m. local time, with Thursday around 9 a.m. particularly strong in its dataset.

Threads is highly conversational, so being available to reply after publishing may matter as much as the publishing minute.

Snapchat is designed around fast mobile consumption and vertical visual storytelling. Google Business Profile serves a different purpose entirely: helping people evaluate a real business while searching Google Search and Maps.

That makes this pairing useful because it demonstrates why businesses should not use one social media strategy everywhere.

Snapchat image sizes

For vertical Snapchat creative, design around 1080 × 1920 px, 9:16 whenever possible.

Snapchat's current advertising specifications accept 720 × 1280 px, 9:16 for Single Image or Video Ads and Sponsored Snaps. Branded Chat Backgrounds use 1080 × 1920 px.

Use high-resolution square source photography for Public Profile images so Snapchat has enough detail for cropping and interface adaptations.

Snapchat video sizes

Stories and Spotlight should be created vertically. Snapchat says Story videos uploaded from the web must use a 9:16 aspect ratio, be at least 540 × 960 px and run between 5 and 60 seconds.

For production, 1080 × 1920 px gives you a stronger master asset.

Snapchat captions and #Topics

Spotlight allows a description, location and #topic when publishing.

Keep the description concise and let the video communicate the main message. Unlike an SEO article, Spotlight is not a surface where several paragraphs beneath a video create the discovery advantage.

What Snapchat content can get reach faster?

For broader discovery, prioritize Spotlight rather than treating Snapchat only as a private Story tool. Snapchat describes Spotlight as its discovery surface and says ranking uses signals including viewing behaviour, completion, sharing, favourites, location, language, hashtags and content categorisation.

Native-looking vertical video, events, demonstrations, behind-the-scenes footage, entertaining processes and strong first-person storytelling are more appropriate than a static corporate flyer.

Best time to post on Snapchat

Snapchat does not provide one official universal best posting time. For a business account, test after-work and evening periods such as 6–10 p.m. local time, alongside any audience-specific peaks visible in your analytics.

Treat that as an experimental scheduling window, not a platform rule.

Google Business Profile image sizes

Google officially recommends 720 × 720 px for Business Profile photos, with a minimum resolution of 250 × 250 px. Files should be JPG or PNG and between 10 KB and 5 MB.

The same high-quality square source works well for logos, cover photography, business photographs and updates, but the visual itself should match the purpose.

Google specifically encourages businesses to publish real photographs of storefronts, interiors, products and services. It also recommends multiple useful business-specific photos that help customers understand what they will actually encounter.

Google Business Profile video sizes

Google requires uploaded Business Profile video to be 720p or higher, no more than 30 seconds and no larger than 75 MB.

Unlike an entertainment network, the objective is not necessarily cinematic production. A short, clear video showing a location, product, service, facilities or customer experience can be more useful.

Google Business Profile post copy and hashtags

Google Business Profile is not a hashtag-first platform. Write concise, locally relevant business copy instead of adding a block of social hashtags.

Google recommends professional, useful posts and allows businesses to publish updates, offers and events that may appear directly in Search and Maps.

For normal updates, a practical working range is roughly 100–300 characters, with the essential value and location context near the beginning. Use the available CTA button where appropriate rather than inserting unnecessary contact information into the copy. Google's policy can remove posts containing unverified phone numbers, email addresses or social handles.

What Google Business Profile content can get views faster?

Think search intent, not virality.

Useful content includes recent project photographs, storefront and exterior images, interior photos, staff at work, real products, completed services, facilities, new offers, events and concise updates that help a person decide whether to contact or visit the business.

Google states that Business Profile posts can appear in Search and Maps, while verified businesses can monitor views, clicks and other customer interactions through Profile performance data.

This is particularly valuable for businesses targeting searches such as web design company in Kampala, hospital in Kampala, tour company in Uganda, restaurant near me, or other location-and-service combinations.

Best time to post on Google Business Profile

Google Business Profile is intent-driven rather than governed by a conventional social feed, so there is no reliable universal "best hour."

For local businesses, test publishing shortly before important customer decision periods: 8–10 a.m. for business and professional services, before lunch for hospitality and food businesses, or before an event, promotion or high-demand period.

The greater priority is keeping the profile current and ensuring that the post matches what people are searching for.

For location-led businesses, Google Business Profile content should also support the wider local search and SEO journey from discovery to website visit, enquiry, booking or direction request.