Mom Behind the Curtain

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The Best Social Media Image Size

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This is is a template to help create the best social media image, the best social media image size and composition that will work for more than one social media site. My goal is a single image that will work on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.

Keeping in mind the optimal image sizes for 3 social media sharing sites: Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter.

I went through several tests, and decided on the following best social media image size, ratio, and composition, and tried to create a template that I can work with to create new images, one image per post that will work for all three social sharing platforms.

The Best Social Media Image Size, Ratios, and Composition

This image is 735×1102 pixels and ideally you have a photo that can fill that space side to side and top to bottom. I use a transparent white overlay at the bottom for a banner/title area.

For Pinterest

A total image size with 1:1.5 ratio image, the ratio I determined would look the best on Pinterest and then crop well for Facebook and Twitter. This includes the whole image. In this image the red areas are the areas of the image that Pinerest grabs that Facebook and Twitter do not. Note that the red area at the bottom has a white transparent overlay for the banner/title area.

For Facebook

In the center of the image, a block that’s 1.9:1 ratio, that will look good on it’s own, like a photo or large art. In this image that area is dark blue.

For Twitter

In the center of the image, a square image, a 1:1 ratio. This block can include part of a banner line at the bottom that makes sense or acts as a teaser; in the test image you will see that this part of the image is turquoise with a white transparent overlay. However, if the photo involves a recognizable face, then a square image will be grabbed either around that face or at the top of the image and cut off the banner. In the test image, this area is turquoise plus the dark blue Facebook area.

Tip: If there are no faces in the photo, Twitter will grab the same part of the image as the WordPress thumbnail that shows in the media library when you Add Media in WordPress.

For WordPress

Upload full sized, 735x11o2 pixels, but display 400×600 pixels. You can choose larger or display it full size, but I found this showed up the best on my laptop and my phone. I can just barely see the full image top to bottom on my laptop and my phone when it is upright/landscape orientation.

Sizes

Not optimal ratios because needed to bleed in length to allow for smart grabs that aren’t exact.

  • Image size 735×1102 pixels
  • WordPress 400×600 pixels
  • Pinterest: 735×1102 pixels
  • Facebook: 735×415 pixels
  • Twitter: 735×750 pixels
  • Banner Space: 735×387 pixels

Note

Banner can be put in the center in the Facebook space if that is most optimal for the post and images.

 

Template to create the best social media image size and composition that will work social sharing images on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.

Update: If you want to see how these parameters work out on a real image, see my post on my blog High School, College, Success! You’re majoring in what? – How to choose a college major Part 1. You’ll notice that I made some adjustments based on knowing that Facebook and Twitter might recognize the girls face in the photo, limited by the size and the orientation of the stock photo that I used. In the end I was right – the face recognition moved up the grab that both Facebook and Twitter made, so I moved up the caption with it to basically be included if you made a square frame around the face. Tweet it or share on Facebook the images on this post and the image at High School, College, Success! to see for yourself how it looks when you share it!

Update 2: If you want to see how the image above looks using a photo without a face, currently the best example I have is Test 10 of finding the best image for social sharing.