With multiple social media channels, it can be tricky to make sure you’ve got the right video specs for each platform. So here you go – just the basic info you need in one handy place.
There’s lots of stats and jargon below, but don’t worry we’ve got some visual-shortcuts ready with some handy infographics too.
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YouTube
With over a billion hours of video watched on YouTube, getting your video content right on this channel is critical. As well as the below specs, make sure you also add a thoughtful description and tagging using relevant key words to help more people find your content.
RATIO: Landscape 16:9 is the standard. YouTube will display other aspect ratios too, including vertical point/portrait 9:16 or old style 4:3. Avoid vertical unless you have a good reason.
RESOLUTION: 1920 x 1080 is standard HD, but it can accept all the way up to 4K 3840 x 2160
MAX LENGTH: 12 hours (more than you should ever need!)
MAX FILE SIZE: 128GB
FILE TYPE: .MP4 and .MOV are recommended, but a range of formats work
(.MPEG4, .AVI, .WMV, .MPEGPS, .FLV, 3GPP, and WebM.) – just check any restrictions if you’re cross-posting on several platforms.
Both landscape and portrait work on Facebook. How you post the video might change this, for example if you’re sharing a link, it’ll automatically be landscape 16:9. And Facebook Feed Ads and Stories videos are also recommended to be square 1080 x 1080.
RATIO: Landscape 16:9 (Facebook prefers 1280 x 720), Portrait 9:16 (720 x 1280). For Stories and Ads, Square 1:1 (1080 x 1080).
MAX LENGTH & SIZE: 240 minutes (some publishing platforms will cap this, so if you use a scheduling tool check their guidelines)
MAX FILE SIZE: 4GB
FILE TYPE: .MP4 and .MOV
Instagram continues to evolve past its original restrictive framework, allowing various aspect ratios: landscape, a version of portrait (vertical) and square. Previously all posts were mobile-uploads only, but with the introduction of IGTV (Instagram TV) you can now upload videos from your desktop. And with the introduction of Stories, breaking videos into multiple 15 second segments means you can chapterise your content into bite-sized segments.
RATIO: Landscape 16:9 (1280 x 720), Vertical 4:5, Square 1:1 (1080 x 1080)
MAX LENGTH: 1 minute (however you can go up to 15min when uploading from mobile or 60 minutes from desktop which will automatically become an IGTV video. The 1 minute preview still shows up on your feed, if the viewer wants to watch longer, they get a prompt to “keep watching” which automatically continues their viewing in-app on IGTV
MAX FILE SIZE: 3.6GB (or 4GB in Reels & Stories)
FILE TYPE: .MP4 (.MOV works for shorter video up to 1min like feed posts, stories and reels)
Uploading your videos directly to Twitter, rather than sharing YouTube or Vimeo links, will give you more control over how the video looks to your viewers, and allows your video to automatically play in people’s feeds. But you do need to be aware the files size and time limits are a lot less than other social channels.
RATIO: 1:1 (square) is the best for viewing across all devices. Landscape 16:9 (1280 x 720), and Portrait 9:16 (720 x 1280) also work
MAX LENGTH: 2minutes & 20 seconds (Fun Fact: that's 140 seconds, matching Twitter's original Tweet limit of 140 characters.)
MAX FILE SIZE: 512 MB
FILE TYPE: .MP4 and .MOV
NOTE: Tweets are maximum count of 280 characters.
While this platform was one of the last to adopt video, it’s gone from strength to strength. According to LinkedIn, video content generates 20 times more shares than other types of content on its platform.
So while sharing links to other channels like YouTube will work, you’re more likely to get engagement by uploading and sharing the video directly on LinkedIn – so here are the specs to get it right.
RATIO: Landscape 16:9 (1280 x 720, but you can go higher resolution with maximum 1920 x 1080px), Portrait and square only work on some, not all, devices.
MAX LENGTH: 10 minutes (Ads can be up to 30 minutes)
MAX FILE SIZE: 5GB (Ads max is 200MB)
FILE TYPE: .MP4 and .MOV.
There you have it. Now you have all the tech-specs to post your socials video content right.
If you need content for socials (and beyond) – get in touch with one of our experts.
