Best practices: Social platforms' 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 that 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: H.264 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
• The aspect ratio must be between 1:3 and 3:1
• Must have a 1:1 pixel aspect ratio
• Only YUV 4:2:0 pixel format is supported
• Audio must be AAC with a 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 2 GB
• 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

• Format: MOV or MP4
• Frame rate: 23-60 FPS
• File size: 100 MB maximum
• Bitrate: VBR, 5 Mbps maximum
• Duration: more than 3 seconds but less than 60.00 seconds (we recommend between 3-59 seconds for best results)
• Audio codec: AAC, 48 kHz 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

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.

LinkedIn

• Native videos available to both Company Pages and Profiles (auto-playing video within LinkedIn.com)
• Up to 200 MB for Company Pages
• YouTube links will display normally and will auto-play

Pinterest

• mp4, .mov or .m4v file types
• H.264 or H.265. Encoding
• Minimum 4 seconds, maximum 15 minutes video length
• The aspect ratio must be Shorter than 1:2 (width: height), taller than 1.91:1. We recommend making your videos square (1:1) or vertical (2:3 or 9:16).

Google My Business

WordPress