Up-to-date guide to social media video specs

The use of videos on social media platforms has rapidly increased the past year, and it is bound to continue growing. If your video specs don't meet the requirements of the different channels, then your brand fails to engage and convert viewers. Picture a client going through your Facebook feed. They come across a video and click to view only to discover that some bottom and top portions are cropped out. Once this happens, they lose interest and scroll to the next content.

To avoid this nightmare, marketers have to be aware of the standard video sizes for every platform. When adequately executed, video is a powerful marketing tool. Getting around all the specs isn't an easy task. The specifications often change, so we have come up with for each social media channel. Creating an optimal viewing experience for your audience is the key to engaging and converting them

We will look at Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube. We cover the following specs:

• Standard video sizes
• Maximum video duration
• The aspect ratio of the video (height and width)
• Video orientation (landscape, vertical, square)
• Video resolution

1. Facebook videos

With over 2.3 billion users a month, Facebook has the most extensive reach among the social media platforms. It also comes with many video formats, all with different specs for optimal advertising purposes. To get the best results on video, Facebook encourages that you upload .mov or .mp4 video file formats. The specifications of the video are dependent on where the video will be displayed. Be it the sidebar, messenger, stories, or newsfeed.

Facebook newsfeed videos

For newsfeed, you can choose either landscape or square footage. However, the file format should either be mp4 or MOV with H.264 compression, fixed frame rates, square pixels, stereo AAC audio, and progressive scan. Other requirements are:

• Resolution: 1280 x 720 pixels
• Aspect ratios: 2:3 (vertical), square (1:1) 16:9 (horizontal), 9:16 (full portrait), 4:5 (vertical)
• Minimum width: 600 pixels
• Maximum video frame: 30fps
• Maximum length: 4hrs

Facebook video ads

The key to a successful Facebook video ad is making it short and precise while being understandable without sound. As a brand, you have to capture your audience's attention as they scroll. Entice them to pause and look at your ad. Other recommendations include:

• Resolution: 1280 x 720 pixels
• Aspect ratios: 2:3 (vertical), square (1:1) 16:9 (horizontal), 9:16 (full portrait), 4:5 (vertical)
• Minimum width: 600pixels
• File size: up to 4GB
• Maximum video frame: 30fps
• Maximum length: 2hrs

Facebook carousel videos

Carousel allows you to upload up to 10 images or videos in one ad. To get the best results:

• Resolution: 1080 x 1080 pixels
• Max length of 4hrs
• Max video size: 4GB
• Landscape videos: 600 x 315 pixels

Facebook stories

Facebook stories can only be viewed within 24hrs of their posting. Stories have become immersive and inherently social. They are user-generated slide shows that now have over 200 million users daily. Stories should have a file size limit of 4GB.

• Required standard video size: above 5000 x 500 pixels
• Aspect ratio: 1.91 to 9:16.

Facebook Messenger

Only landscape videos are allowed on messenger. You can use a standard video size for messenger videos. The specs to adhere to:

• Aspect ratio: 9:16 to 1.91:1
• Video length: 4hrs

2. Instagram Videos

It is the 3rd most popular social media platform. If your target market is made up of millennials and teens, then Instagram is a perfect marketing platform for your product. It only has three types of videos, making it easy to use and navigate. With all the three, you should always use the highest resolution possible to nail it.

Instagram in-feed videos

• Square videos: 600 x 600 pixels
• Horizontal videos : 600 x 315 pixels (1.9:1)
• Vertical vides: 600 x 750 pixels (4:5)
• File size: up to 4GB
• Max length: 60 secs/1 min
• Recommended format: mov and mp4
• Max frame: 30fps

The video should have H.264 compression. When creating an Instagram video, leave at least 250 pixels at the top and bottom. This space can be used to insert a call-to-action button at the bottom. The top space to ensure the profile picture doesn’t obscure any part of your video.

Instagram stories

We highly recommend vertical videos for these 15sec video shots.

• Max resolution of 1080 x 1920 and a minimum of 600 x 1067
• Aspect ratio: 16:9 up to 4:5 or 9:16.

Instagram TV

IGTV popularity has grown so much over the past year. It is a tool most brands are using to create brand awareness. You can post your longer videos here.

• Recommended standard video size: 1080 x 920 pixels
• File format: Mp4
• Aspect ratio – 9:16
• Video length: 15 secs to 10 minutes (with some exclusions)
• File size: up to 650MB for videos under 10 mins and 3.6GB for the longer ones

3. Twitter videos

Twitter is a mobile-first platform; Twitter videos are optimized for mobile. The maximum filesize for all Twitter videos is 512MB. All videos have to use progressive scan, 1:1 pixel ratios, mono, or stereo. The videos shouldn't be more than 140 secs; however, there are some longer videos. The mov or mp4 file formats are the best for Twitter.

Twitter horizontal videos

• Recommended standard video size: 1280 by 1024 pixels
• Maximum video size: 1920 by 1200 and the minimum is 32 by 32
• Aspect ratio: ranging from 1:2.39 to 2.39:1

It’s important to remember that the square video format is more optimized for mobile viewing.

Twitter vertical videos

• Recommended standard video size: 1200 by 1900 pixels the minimum size is 32 by 32

All the other Twitter specifications are similar.

4. LinkedIn videos

Marketers targeting professionals or business people should take advantage of this platform. LinkedIn supports many video file formats, including avi, mov, mp4, asf, mkv, WebP, and flv.

When uploading a video on LinkedIn, it's important to note that native videos generate more traffic than videos from links to other platforms. As a result, native videos play quickly and they are shared more. Always try to upload the video on the platform directly.

• Recommended standard video size: Max of 4096 x 2304 and min of 256 x 144
• File size limit: 5GB
• Maximum duration: 10 minutes
• Aspect ratio: 1:2:4 to 2:4:1

5. YouTube videos

YouTube is used by marketers to post in-depth, longer content. You can create a video and get into details about your brand story and message. One of the major advantages is that YouTube accepts various video sizes ad formats. For instance, MP4, MOV, 3GPP, AWMV, AVI, MPEG4, FLV, to WebM. YouTube has different video categories from ads display, bumper, non-skippable ads, skippable ads, or mid-roll.

Some other specs include:

• Recommended standard video sizes: Min of 426 x 240 and max of 3840 x 2160
• File size limit: 128GB
• Maximum duration: 12hrs
• The skippable ad only skipped after 5 secs
• Non-skippable ads run from 15-30 seconds
• Bumper ads run for 6 secs
• Mid-roll ads minimum length is 30 secs

Convert and resize videos to meet standard video sizes

Filestar makes it easy to convert and reformat videos to give your audience optimal viewing experiences.

You can convert all your format files to MOV and MP4, which are the most preferred with social media platforms.

You can also resize your videos to meet the standard video sizes using Filestar.