It can be time consuming searching for the perfect image to share on social media only to find out the image isn’t sized correctly for the social network you’re posting to. This becomes more of a problem if you’re planning on sharing video due to the time, effort, and cost of producing video content for social media. Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, and all other social networks have different standards on the type of image and video files that can be published to their platform.

Here at Denim Social, we have created this guide to help you navigate the world of images and videos when publishing through the Denim Social Platform. We will continue to update this as functionality is added to the platform. You don't need to memorize this guide because our Compose screen will tell you if the image or video you're using isn't sized correctly for the social network you're publishing to. This will allow you to quickly update the files and publish your engaging social post!

If you're looking for a full guide on social media imagery beyond Denim Social, such as cover photo and profile image guidance, check out the Up-to-Date Social Media Sizing & Resource Guide article on our website.

Aspect ratio is often the cause of a social network not allowing media to be shared through Denim Social. This term defines the proportional relationship between an image or video's width and height. We encounter aspect ratio each and every day without even realizing it when we look at our computer screen, TV, or the phone in our hand.

Aspect ratios are written as formulas of width to height, like 9:16. A square image that is 500px x 500px has the same width as it does height and so the aspect ratio would be 1:1.

If we look at Instagram below, it has a minimum aspect ratio of 4:5 (0.80) for both images and videos. This means that an image 2000px x 2500px (2000 / 2500 = 0.80) could be published to Instagram. However, an image 2000px x 2600px (2000 / 2600 = 0.77) could not be published. The second image is too tall in proportion to the width which brings the aspect ratio lower than the minimum allowed amount.