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Written by Alex York
Published on November 14, 2022
Reading time 16 minutes
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Last Updated: December 20, 2022
Staying relevant and capturing your audience’s attention is a constant challenge for marketers. And now that brands rely on video content more than ever, it’s critical to use the correct social media video specs and advertising video sizes.
However, we couldn’t find all the correct social video sizes in one place. So we decided to create a complete guide of every single social media video spec and advertising video dimension.
Before we start, here are some additional resources to help you keep the information in once place:
Learn how to develop and implement your Instagram marketing strategy today.
We’ve gathered a plethora of information on each social network’s specific video sizes and specs. Simply click the links below to jump to your desired network:
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Facebook video is consumed at higher rates each year, so it’s no wonder why so many marketers search for the correct Facebook video specs.
The challenge for marketers is that there are simply so many types of videos you can share on Facebook and the platform updates its design frequently. Each video format has different dimensions and specs, which can make it confusing to know whether or not you’re uploading the correct format for organic or paid posts. Follow the specs below to optimize your posts.
Easily the most common type of video on Facebook comes from shared posts. This type of video lives in your Facebook feed, and can be shared by brands or your friends. While it’s not as easy to get organic reach on Facebook, it’s still a viable way to share video. You can choose between two video orientations: Landscape and Portrait. Here’s a look at the video specs for both.
Video Guidelines
Facebook’s 360 Video allows users to get a complete 360-degree view by scrolling with a cursor on web, by touch or turning the device on mobile.
Video Guidelines
The convenience of cross-posting your Instagram Reels to Facebook expands the viewership and reach of your videos. This format appears organically in feeds, but often gets “priority” on Facebook feeds.
These ads are the sponsored equivalent of in-feed posts and follow similar guidelines.
Video guidelines
Character limits
There are more than 5 million advertisers now on Facebook and having the right specs for your ads can be tricky. Each type of Facebook video ad is different, so let’s go ahead and break down the specs for each type of video you can produce.
Facebook Carousel Video ads allow brands to showcase multiple videos (or images) and a link within a user’s Facebook feed. It has grown in popularity because its unique scrolling feature allows users to see more content before clicking a link. In fact, Digiday estimated Carousel Ads to be 10 times more effective than standard social media ads.
Video Guidelines
The Facebook Collection ads showcases multiple images and a main video above it. This is perfect for displaying multiple products (or various colors of a single product) and a video as well. The ad type has been popular so far with retailers and clothing companies.
Video Guidelines
Character Limits
Facebook Instant Experience ads open up a full-screen experience after the first click, which can be further customized with a variety of interactive features. This can include multiple video experiences, including features to auto-play on loop.
Video Guidelines
Facebook’s Slideshow videos were built for advertisers wanting to reach audiences with slower internet connections. Instead of a regular video, slideshows are just that–a slideshow of images or video in an ad display.
Video Guidelines
Facebook has also added the Stories feature, disappearing short photo or video updates that are only available for 24 hours. In addition to user-generated organic posts, Stories ads that run in between sets of user stories are also available. While most users will be sharing immediate & organic updates from their phone’s camera without worrying too much about their video specs, the guidelines for this format are similar for paid & organic posts.
Video Guidelines
Character Limits
For more information on the video specs for Facebook, visit the Facebook Help Center.
Instagram launched video capabilities in 2013 and quickly saw enough success to start advertising on the platform in 2015. Since then, video only continues to grow as an engaging social format. So needless to say, Instagram videos are absolutely worth the investment.
Since 2015, Instagram crafted its videos formats to allow three different styles: landscape, square and vertical. The predominantly-mobile social network is perfect to share videos of any size organically to reach your audience.
Video Guidelines
Character Limits
Introduced in 2020, Instagram Reels are another option for your video strategy on Instagram. These short-form, easily digestible videos are becoming the preferred type of content in Instagram feeds.
Fortunately for social content creators looking to easily generate a lot of content for Instagram, most of the video specs for Instagram Reels are fairly similar to other formats on the platform, with the main differences being the short length and the ease of editing in-app to add effects and sound.
As Instagram has started to add separate tabs for different content types, thumbnails will be cropped differently on each view. If the viewer is on the first tab that has all content types, the thumbnail will be cropped to the traditional square post size of 1:1–center your subjects and plan to avoid undesirable vertical cropping.
Instagram’s advertising revenue has significantly increased over the last year. In fact, Instagram predicts to earn $4 billion in mobile ad revenue in 2017 alone. The push for Instagram advertising is real and marketers have to be ready to take advantage with engaging videos.
Much like the in-feed organic Instagram video options, the network provides similar options for advertising. These video ads appear nearly identical to organic posts to blend in with users’ feeds. In fact, the Instagram video specs are the same for organic and paid content.
Video Guidelines
Video Character Guidelines (Mobile)
Much like Facebook’s Carousel Ads, Instagram offers a similar feature. Carousel ads allow users to see more of a product or feature than a single image or video. With Instagram, your carousel video ads can have 2-10 cards with a full-width call to action below the ad.
Video Guidelines
It didn’t take long for Instagram Stories to feature ads within users’ story feeds. Brands can seamlessly integrate their video content between other Instagram users. Much like Snapchat, it’s smart to make these videos more raw and in-the-moment to avoid drastically standing out as an ad, especially since users can immediately swipe to leave.
Video Guidelines
If you’re looking for further information including images, check out our complete guide to all the Instagram ad sizes!
For more information on the video specs for Instagram, visit the Facebook Help Center.
TikTok has quickly gained attention in the social space, and some social marketers might be feeling caught off guard by the rush to understand what works and what doesn’t on the platform. Fortunately, TikTok’s focus on easy to create and share videos means it’s not hard to start producing video content for the platform, and there are plenty of trends to inspire TikTok content creation. Read on for the specs.
TikTok videos are all about the ease of creation, editing and sharing, so it makes sense that specs are more or less oriented around typical mobile phone dimensions. One key trait to keep in mind if you’re trying to repurpose video content across platforms is that videos uploaded from another file source, rather than recorded on the app, can be longer than 60 seconds.
Video Guidelines
TikTok ads are a rapidly evolving opportunity for brands. The in-feed option for paid TikTok content is fairly similar to the formatting for existing organic content. To fine-tune paid content for the best performance, be sure to consult TikTok’s business center for the latest tips.
Video Guidelines
Twitter is a popular space to share and interact with different social media videos. For marketers, it’s all about keeping a user’s attention with enthralling and click-worthy video content. In the sports and entertainment industry, Twitter is often the go-to for sharing video content, so it’s critical to learn the correct Twitter video specs.
Twitter provides two formats of in-feed video content to share with your followers: landscape and portrait. These specific formats are only available for uploading video directly to Twitter, rather than sharing YouTube or Vimeo links. Luckily, Twitter makes it easy to share organic content, but the dimensions do change as the video bitrate alters.
Video Guidelines
Character Limits
Looking to promote your video through paid ads on Twitter? Luckily, you can use the same exact formats from Twitter organic videos. Stick to the same specs for both organic and paid video to ensure maximum visibility.
For more information on the video specs for Twitter, visit the Twitter Help Center.
Snapchat is still an active network for younger generations to share video content. Whether it’s through FOMO-inducing disapppfilters, Snapchat is a hotbed for video sharing. And for your brand, it’s important to know the correct video dimensions for Snapchat.
This video format is the most common across the channel and is the main way users communicate back and forth through the app. However, your business can post videos to its story so others can see what your business is up to. Just follow these specs:
Video Guidelines
Snapchat currently offers one main video format for ads, which is known as the long-form video. While there are partner opportunities to put video within Snapchat’s discovery option, most dimensions are the same, but require your business to reach out to the social network for more details on advertising. However, the Snapchat Long-Form Video Ad is what users see in between viewing users’ Stories.
Video Guidelines
For more information on the video specs for Snapchat, visit the Snapchat Ads Help Center.
Known as the second-largest search engine behind Google, YouTube is an essential network for video content. For marketers, YouTube is a great space to promote, educate and share video content around your brand.
As YouTube continues to grow as a destination for video content, it hosts everything from short form promotional videos to full-length movies and TV. This means users are streaming content on all sorts of devices, which could have different levels of zoom or overscan.
While there’s no hard and fast rules from the platform on how to approach the video editing concept of ‘title safe’ areas where text like titles and subtitles aren’t cut off, you do want to avoid placing these types of visual elements right at the edges of your video area. Read on for more specifics on each format available on YouTube.
While YouTube allows users to upload various types of media formats and use plenty of different dimensions, organically, there’s truly only one format for the video player. Organic videos should all follow 16:9 ratio, but can be uploaded 4:3. However, the smaller ratio will automatically pillarbox the sides to still make it fit in the player. YouTube has seven recommended dimensions and ratios for standard YouTube videos:
Video Guidelines
Standard YouTube videos are pretty straightforward, but there are a few video ad formats to learn if you want to advertise on the network. According to data from Google, Brands advertising on YouTube often receive a 20% increase in traffic.
We’ve put these four YouTube video ads specs together because in the end, they all play through the standard YouTube video player. That means all of these ad types follow the same dimensions as the non-ad videos, but only differ in video length. Let’s look at each ad type:
Video Guidelines
YouTube display ads are shown in users’ search queries and sometimes appear in the right video column when watching a video. These ads are static, which means they don’t automatically play. However, once the video is clicked, the type of content displayed can simply follow the standard video player guidelines mentioned above.
Video Guidelines
For more information on the video specs for YouTube, visit the Google Help Center.
Introduced late 2020, YouTube Shorts have recently made its debut as another short-form video feature. These videos are a new way to watch, create and discover short-form content. Shorts can be captured and edited from a smartphone or uploaded through the standard upload workflow from desktop or mobile. Because people are watching more short-form videos globally, using Shorts is a new way to reach wider audiences to entertain, education or make them feel good.
Video Guidelines
For more information on the video specs for YouTube, visit the Google Help Center.
Even though LinkedIn is still in the early stages of video content adoption, the network is still a go-to source for sharing. In fact, nearly 75% of business executives say they watch online videos every week. With that number only likely to grow, it’s safe to say LinkedIn will continue to put video content at its forefront.
The only video format you can upload is through a shared video. While there are options to share YouTube links in shared posts and in LinkedIn Pulse articles, there’s still just one way to upload your own video.
Video Guidelines
For more information on the video specs for LinkedIn, visit the LinkedIn Help Center.
As of 2018, LinkedIn now offers video ads. The requirements are a little bit different than shared video, so be sure to consider them when developing ads for your paid campaign.
Video Guidelines
For more information on the video specs for LinkedIn ads, visit LinkedIn Marketing Solutions Help.
Pinterest allows video upload for business accounts only, so they have specs designed for brands to get the most out of the highly visual and inspirational lifestyle content frequently shared on the platform.
In addition to ads, business accounts can upload organic video content. There are two formats: standard and max width video.
Video Guidelines
Character Limits
There are two formats for Pinterest Promoted Video: standard and max width. Both versions have the same specs as the options for organic uploads. These video ads appear in users’ boards, but advertisers can select the style in the ads manager.
Video Guidelines
Alex York
Alex York is a former Sprout writer, and he’s your guiding light to all things content. When he’s not writing, you’ll catch him defending Ohio sports teams or endlessly scrolling through Netflix.
Read all articles by Alex York
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