Episode Transcript
Social media can boost your brand awareness and leads when used correctly. In this episode, we cover the importance of using different image sizes and different approaches in four of the main social media platforms.
In this episode, you will be joining Harry Casimir, CEO of Atilus and Boat Marketing Pros and Jennifer Coomer, the Director of Business Development at Atilus and Boat Marketing Pros as well. Read the transcript below, transcribed by https://otter.ai
Harry
Hey guys, welcome to another episode of Boat Marketing Podcast.
Today we have Jennifer Coomer, Director of Business Development at Atilus and Boat Marketing Pros. She is going to walk us through the importance of social media images and how you should show that when you work with different image sizes and different platforms of social media. How to appropriately resize those images to ensure that the end-user, the people that visit your social media page, have a very, very nice experience.
So, without further due, we are going to dive right into it. Jenn, can you give us a brief background and a quick introduction. What is on the wall of social media nowadays before you break down the image size for us.
Jenn
Hi everyone, as Harry mentioned, my name is Jennifer Coomer, the Director of Business Development for Atilus and Boat Marketing Pros. I want to start off by saying a crazy statistic that is out there and I got this directly from Search Engine Journal. That stat is social media channels overall have 3.8 billion users, which just shows that social media is a huge business platform. And we will dive into this in some of our other podcasts that we’ll have later. But social media is the perfect place to connect and engage with your prospects and your overall audience. But that is if you do it right.
Harry
And this is across platforms. Is that correct? Or is it just any specific one?
Jenn
No. So we will cover the following channels, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn. Obviously, there are numerous other channels out there such as Pinterest, YouTube, Snapchat, the list goes on, but we’ll cover the popular ones of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Harry
Awesome. Let’s get right into it. So we’re going to cover four of them. My first question for you. Why is it important to have proper image sizes and maybe a follow-up question to that is what those image sizes should be.
Jenn
What we see here too frequently at Atilus and Boat Marketing Pros, especially when clients take on their own social media, we see that a lot of clients use the same image across social platforms. Unfortunately, that is not the correct way to post across social media. The last thing you want is to have your business come across as unprofessional and unattractive.
That’s why I think image sizing is super important. To jump into image sizing. Let’s start with Facebook. For instance, when you have a Facebook profile, you obviously have the Facebook profile picture, you have the standard cover photo, and then you actually have the physical posts, the content that you’re putting out there to your followers and your audience.
Out of all of that, to go over each individual piece, your Facebook profile picture should at least be 180 by 180 pixels and keep in mind pixels is in the digital world content sizes. The Facebook cover photo should be 820 by 312. Again, that’s in pixels. Your actual Facebook posts, which these images are extremely important and should always look professional as they help you engage with followers, to keep them high quality they should be 1200 by 630 pixels. So that’s just an overview of image sizing for Facebook.
Harry
Okay, so now before we get to the other one, in Facebook itself though there are different types of image obviously if I just want to post an image of the team picture or a product I’m selling, or maybe I take a picture of the boat dealer I’m in, what size should that image be? Can it be anything I want or is it one size and good size that need to be. I understand the profile picture, obviously, the cover photo, the posts, but random pictures, is that what you would call posts as well? Or is it different?
Jenn
If you’re posting any random pictures, I would keep them under that same umbrella as Facebook posts. Any posts, any content that you’re pushing out there, bear in mind, to keep them high quality and professional, they should be 1200 by 630. Every now and then it’s okay to post a team picture or if you’re out and about to upload your photos directly to Facebook. That’s fine but try your hardest to keep them 1200 by 630 when it comes to your actual posts because they look better and they’re easier for users to see right away in their feed.
Harry
I guess now we tackled Facebook. So we move on now I believe you said Instagram right? What are the image sizes for Instagram and why is it so different than Facebook?
Jenn
Instagram is another popular platform, another popular social channel, as you know it’s owned by Facebook. Like Facebook, Instagram also has a rounded profile picture versus a square. Again, you’re going to have different image sizes than you will on Facebook simply because Instagram is a completely different platform. It’s more visual.
With Instagram like I mentioned, you have your profile picture, you have the Instagram posts, and then you also have the Instagram stories, which Facebook now has too. For the profile picture for Instagram, because it’s rounded, keep in mind your image size should be 110 by 110 pixels so that your logo or the image you’re using or the graphic that you’re using is captured in that small circle. You don’t have a lot of room to work with when it comes to your Instagram profile picture. So, you have to make sure that the image that you’re uploading is 110 by 110. Otherwise, it will not be professional or high quality at all
When it comes to the Instagram posts, so this is what goes directly on your Instagram feed, again, this is what your audience and users engage with. To keep those professional and also, high quality, those should be 1080 by 1080. Once you upload them to the actual platform, those images will be scaled down to 612 by 612, again, pixels.
Instagram stories, which is sometimes video content, sometimes you’re sharing a post, those stories should be around 600 by 1067 pixels, just to give you an idea.
Harry
I guess Facebook and obviously Instagram are different. So, tell us a little bit about Twitter.
Jenn
Twitter is a bit different from Instagram and Facebook and with Twitter, yes, it can still be visual, but mainly they are tweets. Twitter is all about a 280-character count. We highly recommend that you use images in your content as well. It’s not just about tweeting content, it’s also using graphic along with that content. Again, as I mentioned, it’s a bit different than the other platforms. So the sizing is going to be completely different as well.
To go over, your cover profile picture for your business should be 1500 by 1500 pixels. If you’re uploading a photo with your tweet, I would suggest that you keep it at or above 440 by 220 pixels. So again, completely different image sizes compared to Instagram and Facebook.
To dive directly into LinkedIn image sizes. LinkedIn is a completely different social channel as well. And you can either have a personal page or business page or both. The sizing is different across the board when it comes to your personal page as well as your business page.
I’m going to start off with your personal page. On your personal page, you’re going to have a profile image, you’re going to have a background image and you’re going to have your existing posts too if you’re posting content or sharing content.
On your personal page, your profile image should at least be 400 by 400 pixels, and I highly recommend that you do a professional headshot versus something directly from your computer or your smartphone. You should always have a professional headshot as your profile image for your personal page. Keep your background image at roughly 1584 by 396 pixels. And then if you are sharing an image or a post, and this goes for both your business and personal page, it should be roughly 1104 by 736 pixels.
Then to jump right into the business page. You should keep your logo as your profile picture and that should be roughly 300 by 300 pixels. Your cover image should be 1192 by 220 pixels, your banner image on your business page should be roughly 646 by 220 pixels. And then on your business page, your hero image should be roughly 1128 by 376 pixels.
Harry
When you say, business page, is that something that anyone can do, or you actually have to have admin rights to this business page? How does that work?
Jenn
I think every company should have a business page. I mean, it is free to set one up. You can determine within your company profile who has access to that page, and you can grant access to a business that’s managing your social accounts if you would like. You can assign specific roles to your team members too – so do they have admin rights? Are they editors? are they publishers? Etc. You know, what rights do they have? But I think it’s really important that you have a personal page as well as a business page and make sure that you’re active on LinkedIn just as much as you are on any other social channel.
So, share content that you are sharing on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook; make sure that the same content is going on LinkedIn. And then to help push that content, make sure you’re sharing it on your personal LinkedIn page too. Just an extra tip.
You know, we created this guide, this checklist in hopes that you guys can use this when you go to post not only personally but on your business pages across all social channels; that you’ll use this as kind of a guide or checklist.
Harry
That is fantastic. Well, Jen, thank you so much. This is really helpful. As Jen mentioned, there are some platforms depending on the type of business you are in that may not make a lot of sense for you. But, this is something we highly recommend, that every business has one of those social media account for a few things. One, people will find you there. So that’s an added bonus so the customer can find you. But second is more if you don’t claim your page, your page may exist on one of those social media platforms that you may not be aware of. So, it’s best to ensure that you claim your business page and make sure you dress it up to make sure it matches your brand across the board. That is why is so important.
Jenn, is there anything else before we close this out today to add?
Jenn
That’s all I have, and what we can do too, is supply this information, this checklist, this guide, in the form of a blog post too so that those that are listening, you can have something in front of you as well. So while you’re listening, you can kind of go through, you know, the blog post too. So, we’ll be sure to post that cross the website too, so that you have that information.
Harry
That’s fantastic. Well, Jenn, thank you so much.
And thank you so much for all of the listeners that keep on watching.
As I have been closing out multiple podcasts here, if you have any suggestions, any tips or any subject that you want us to go over on this podcast, feel free to email us at podcast@boatmarketingpros.com or you can just head out to boatmarketingpros.com/podcast so you can see all of the previous podcasts and subscribe to our podcast in either iTunes or Google Podcasts or wherever podcasts are distributed. And again, thank you so much Jen for joining us and this is a wrap for us.
Jenn
Thank you.
