Best practices: Social platform's video guidelines

When posting videos to any social media platforms via their API (how third-party platforms like Sendible integrate to social sites) you’ll find that there are restrictions in place which will cause your posts to bounce if you exceed them.

This is not the case when logging in and posting directly to your social media accounts (natively), 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 these video restrictions and you can jump to the social site you need by clicking on the social site on the right of this article.

Twitter

Recommended:

Recommended Video Codec: H264 High Profile
Recommended Frame Rates: 30 FPS, 60 FPS
Recommended Video Resolution: 1280x720 (landscape), 720x1280 (portrait), 720x720 (square)
Recommended Minimum Video Bitrate: 5,000 kbps
Recommended Minimum Audio Bitrate: 128 kbps
Recommended Audio Codec: AAC LC
Recommended Aspect Ratio: 16:9 (landscape or portrait), 1:1 (square)

Advanced:

Frame rate must be 60 FPS or less
Dimensions must be between 32x32 and 1280x1024
File size must not exceed 512 mb
Duration must be between 0.5 seconds and 140 seconds
Aspect ratio must be between 1:3 and 3:1
Must have 1:1 pixel aspect ratio
Only YUV 4:2:0 pixel format is supported
Audio must be AAC with Low Complexity profile. High-Efficiency AAC is not supported
Audio must be mono or stereo, not 5.1 or greater
Must not have open GOP (group of pictures)
Must use progressive scan

Facebook

No larger than 250 MB
Up to 59 minutes in length
Adding a YouTube link will post as a link preview which when clicked on, will open YouTube in a new tab to play the video.

Instagram

Please Note:
The following restrictions mainly apply when posting to Instagram Business Profiles through Instagram's API, as posting with an Instagram Reminder (Post) profile is manual and will still go through the Instagram mobile app natively.

Format: MOV or MP4
Frame rate: 23-60 FPS.
File size: 100 Mb maximum
Bitrate: VBR, 5Mbps maximum
Duration: 60 seconds maximum, 3 seconds minimum
Audio codec: AAC, 48khz sample rate maximum, 1 or 2 channels (mono or stereo).
Video codec:

HEVC
H264
Progressive Scan
Closed GOP
4:2:0 chroma subsampling

Picture size:

Maximum columns (horizontal pixels): 1920
Minimum aspect ratio [cols / rows]: 4 / 5
Maximum aspect ratio [cols / rows]: 16 / 9

Important Note:
MOV videos might fail to post at some instances and can be less consistent than MP4 videos, but we are looking to address this ASAP

YouTube

No longer than 59 minutes
Channel icon: 800 x 800 pixels (this will get rendered to 98 x 98 pixels)
Video thumbnail: 1280 x 760 pixels
Channel art: 2560 x 1440 pixels
(Make sure you check the template as cropping varies widely from TV to mobile to desktop)

Important Note:
Your YouTube account will need to be verified, in order for you to be able to post videos with a duration longer than 15 minutes

Native Videos available to Company Pages only (Playing video inside of LinkedIn.com)
Up to 200MB for Company Pages
Posting videos to LinkedIn Profiles will display as a link (Which when clicked on will open in a new tab outside of LinkedIn.com)
YouTube links will display normally and will auto-play

Tumblr

Any video files uploaded will appear as an image which when clicked on, will open in a new page to play the video

Google My Business

Important Note:
Google currently doesn't allow videos to be posted via their API, but this may change in the future

WordPress

Important Note:
WordPress currently doesn't allow videos to be posted via their API, but this may change in the future