The most efficient and effective way to make sure your social media channels are reaching your target audiences and receive the engagement your brand deserves is by utilizing social media best practices. And one of these best practices is by -you guessed it-following social media photo guidelines. In this blog post, we walk you through aspect ratio, pixels, size, and all the necessary guidelines to be sure your social media channels look the best.
Before we dive into updated image guidelines for your social media marketing strategy, we thought we would spread the lasting holiday cheer and give you tips to up your online presence on your social media accounts. Different social platforms deserve different attention. That’s why we broke up your social strategy platform by platform.
First up, the ‘Gram. Get your target audience to engage by simply posting images your social network wants to see. With the Instagram algorithm constantly changing, you have to fight for visibility. Make sure you are posting high-quality content that your followers expect to see and are eager to like. And, we will let you in on a little secret. You don’t need adobe photoshop to create quality content. Plenty of photo tools available in the app store like VSCO & Afterlight allow you to create professional content for free.
Your profile picture is the first thing your Facebook fans will see. To display this image accurately, make sure your photo is uploaded directly and not cropped from a previous image you have. If you don’t do this, you may run into sizing and cropping issues. It is recommended your photo be as simple as a logo. Your cover photo is also an important piece of your profile real estate. This can be a bit more creative and can be swapped out whenever you are running new campaigns or planning events. Excitingly enough this can also be video! But of course, make sure this adhere’s to Facebook’s image guidelines (see below!).
Networking sites like LinkedIn not only allow an effective and professional recruitment process but can be extremely influential in elevating your brand as a trend-setter in your respected field. When optimizing your presence on LinkedIn, it should go without saying, but keep it professional. What you are posting on Twitter, you probably you wouldn’t be posting on networking sites, at least not in the same language. LinkedIn posts should be crafted to industry-specific content that answers questions, provide solutions, cover your industry and follow all the grammar rules.
Twitter is not “all about me” in 2019, especially if you are a business. I know this may sound a bit counterintuitive as you may be thinking…” aren’t my social networks supposed to reflect my brand?” The answer, of course, is yes, but with Twitter’s rapid newsfeed, your followers don’t want to see advertisements every time they log in. Instead, take advantage of Twitter’s speed to interact with followers, mix in a few ads, retweet relatable content, and share a few opinions on trending topics. This way you are still the first thing followers see when they refresh their feed, but now you are displaying a diverse set of content with your name attached, still a reflection of your brand! Twitter is the land of – social media engagement – opportunity, approach it wisely!
Back to Basics
What do all of these social media sites have in common? Images!! The new year means new social media image guidelines, and below you will find them compiled in a beautiful infographic. Visual content is processed faster than written content and prompts better recall and engagement on your social networks. Which is why it may seem counterintuitive that I’m typing all these words for you to read but don’t worry we compiled the 2019 social media image size guidelines into a handy infographic. After all, “people retain 80 percent of what they see and only 20 percent of what they read.” Most people are visual learners and marketers need to consider this when creating content that they want their audience to digest and share. (which is another reason photo size needs to optimized for your social media channels!) We even added some color to our infographic because “visuals with color increase people’s willingness to read a piece of content by 80%.”
Now that you’re convinced of the value of using visual content, here is our social image guideline cheat sheet.
Want to evolve your marketing strategy to enhance your presence on social platforms? Look no further, we are a social media agency that lives and breathes the world of social. Contact us!
