Best practices: Social platforms image guidelines
When posting attachments to any social media platforms via their API (how third-party platforms like Sendible integrate with social sites), you’ll find that there are restrictions in place that will cause your posts to fail if you exceed these requirements.
This is not the case when logging in and posting directly to your social media accounts. However, all social media platforms apply restrictions for users posting via their API, and these restrictions differ from channel to channel.
This article will outline all the restrictions, and you can jump to the social site you need by clicking on the social site on the right of this article.
Caution: In some instances, you may find that the images appear as broken images. This can be due to the following:
- If you lose connectivity during the upload and there is a timeout, the image files may fail to upload, although it still appears in the Compose Box after the upload.
- If the og:image URL is invalid and we cannot locate the page where the image lives. This applies to invalid link URLs added via a CSV file and uploaded to the Bulk Importer.
- If we are unable to validate the file size of the image.
Important: Copyright, as outlined by national or international law, is the ownership of intellectual property. This can include images, video and other media that you post and we strongly recommend that you consult each social media's community guidelines as well as contacting an attorney if you aren't sure if you have copyrights or may have infringed on them.
- File size: Up to 5 MB
- Formats: JPG, PNG, and GIF
- 1200 x 1200 pixels is recommended for a 1:1 aspect ratio
- 1200 x 628 pixels is recommended for a 1.91:1 aspect ratio
- While you can upload any size image, it will be cropped to 600px by 335px in your feed but will display full-sized once clicked on.
- File size: Up to 4 MB
- Formats: JPG, PNG, and GIF
- Desktop news feed: 1200 x 630 pixels
- Up to 15 images can be uploaded per post
- File size: Up to 8 MB
- Formats: JPG and PNG
- Square: 1:1 aspect ratio
- Aspect ratio: Must be within a 4:5 (portrait) and 1.91:1 (landscape) range
- Minimum width: 320 pixels (will be scaled up to the minimum if necessary)
- Maximum width: 1440 pixels (will be scaled down to the maximum if necessary)
- Height: Varies, depending on width and aspect ratio
- Recommended: 1080 pixels wide and an aspect ratio between 4:5 and 1.91 (see https://help.instagram.com/1631821640426723)
Instagram Story
- Format: JPEG
- File size: 8 MB maximum
- Aspect ratio: We recommended 9:16 to avoid cropping or blank space
- Colour Space: sRGB. Images using other colour spaces will have their colour spaces converted to sRGB
YouTube
- File size: Up to 10 MB
- Formats: JPG, PNG, and GIF
- Up to 900 width X 470 height pixels for best results when posting via Sendible
- GIF images are supported up to 250 frames
- Images for posts: 3162 x 3162 pixels (however, very large images will be resized to standard sizes)
- No more than nine (9) images per post
Google My Business
Google has strict guidelines when creating or updating posts, and this information will help ensure that your post publishes successfully to Google My Business and that your images look great!
- File size: Between 10 KB and 5 MB
- Formats: JPG and PNG
- Minimum size: 250 px tall, 250 px wide (Please note: this resolution size is intended for profile pics, and if used for post images, the image may look blurred when displayed in full rather than as a thumbnail. For best results, we recommend a minimum size of 480 x 270 pixels.)
- Maximum size: 2120 x 1192 pixels
- Recommended size: 720 px tall, 720 px wide
- Image ratio has to be 16:9 landscape - 1024 x 576 pixels (recommended)
WordPress
- Up to 5 MB