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In a previous article, we dove into how to come up with a social media video strategy and reviewed different examples of social media videos you can make. Well, fun’s over, people. Now we’re on to the technical part of this social media guide - up-to-date video specs for video on every social platform. As a video creative, this will help you create videos fully optimized for each social platform.
Sprout Social did an amazing job at creating an updated video specs guide. I’ve added all the details below.
Ideal video length: 60 seconds.
“Hubspot found that Facebook audiences engage the most with 1 minute videos.
In-feed videos
Video Guidelines
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Recommended video dimensions is 1280 x 720
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Minimum width is 600 pixels (length depends on aspect ratio) for Landscape and Portrait.
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Landscape aspect ratio is 16:9.
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Portrait aspect ratio is 9:16 (if video includes link, aspect ratio is 16:9).
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Mobile renders both video types to aspect ratio 2:3.
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Max file size is 4GB.
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Recommended video formats are .MP4 and .MOV.
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Video length max is 120 minutes.
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Video max frames 30fps.
Character Limits
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Maximum count: 2,200 characters.
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Recommended: 90 characters (if link is used).
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Headline max: 25 characters.
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Link description max: 30 characters.
360 degree videos
Video Guidelines
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Maximum dimensions is 4096 x 2048.
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Minimum width is 600 pixels (length depends on aspect ratio).
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360 aspect ratio is 2:1.
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Max file size is 1.75GB.
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Recommended video formats are .MP4.
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Video length must be less than 40 minutes.
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Video max frames 60fps.
Character Limits
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Maximum count: 2,200 characters.
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Recommended: 90 characters (if link is used).
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Headline max: 25 characters.
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Link description max: 30 characters.
Facebook Stories
Video Guidelines
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Recommend dimensions 1080 x 1920
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Aspect ratios: 1.91 to 9:16, with colored gradient bars rendered above and below videos under 9:16. The text field will also be placed under below videos smaller than this aspect ratio.
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Max video file size is 4GB
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Max video length is 15 seconds
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Recommended video formats are .MP4 and .MOV.
Ideal video length: 30 seconds
“Hubspot discovered videos that received the maximum engagement averaged 26 seconds.
Square, Portrait, and Landscape in-feed videos
Video Guidelines
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Minimum resolution for landscape video is 600 x 315.
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Minimum resolution for square video is 600 x 600.
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Minimum resolution for vertical video is 600 x 750.
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Landscape aspect ratio is 1:91:1.
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Square aspect ratio is 1:1.
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Vertical aspect ratio is 4:5.
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Max file size for all formats is 4GB.
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Recommended video formats are .MP4 and .MOV.
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Video length max is 60 seconds.
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Video max frames 30fps
Character Limits
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Maximum caption: 2,200 characters.
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Caption recommendation: 125 characters.
Instagram Stories
Video Guidelines
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Recommended resolution is 1080 x 1920.
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Minimum resolution is 600 x 1067.
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Aspect ratio is 9:16.
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Max file size is 4GB.
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Recommended video formats are .MP4 and .MOV.
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Video length max is 15 seconds.
Instagram TV - IGTV
Video Guidelines
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Recommended resolution is 1080 x 1920.
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Minimum resolution is 720.
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Aspect ratio is 9:16 or 16:9 (landscape). IGTV recently added support for landscape
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Videos are minimum 15 seconds and maximum 10 minutes long. Some accounts can upload a video up to 1 hour using desktop.
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Max file size for videos less than 10 minutes is 650MB. For videos up to 60 minutes, it’s 3.6 GB
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The required file format is MP4
Ideal Video Length: 45 seconds
“According to Hubspot’s research, Twitter’s #videooftheday averaged 43 seconds.
Landscape and Square Videos
Video Guidelines
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Landscape recommended dimensions: 320 x 180 (256K bitrate), 640 x 360 (768K bitrate) and 1280 x 720 (2048K bitrate).
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Square recommended dimensions: 240 x 240 (256K bitrate), 480 x 480 (768K bitrate) and 640 x 640 (1024K bitrate).
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Minimum dimensions for both is 32 x 32.
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Maximum dimensions for both is 1280 x 1024.
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Aspect ratios are between 1:2.39 to 2.39:1.
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Max file size is 512MB.
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Recommended video formats are .MP4 for web and .MOV for mobile.
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Video length max is 140 seconds.
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Video max frames 40fps.
Character Limits
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Maximum count: 280 characters.
YouTube
Video Guidelines
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Recommended dimensions: 426 x 240 (240p), 640 x 360 (360p), 854 x 480 (480p), 1280 x 720 (720p), 1920 x 1080 (1080p), 2560 x 1440 (1440p) and 3840 x 2160 (2160p).
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Minimum dimension is 426 x 240.
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Max dimension is 3840 x 2160.
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Aspect ratio is 16:9 (auto adds pillarboxing if 4:3).
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For mobile viewing, the best aspect ratio is a 2:1 aspect ration (3840 x 1920). See Peter McKinnon’s video here.
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Max file size is 128GB or 12 hours, whichever is less.
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Accepted video formats include: .MOV, .MPEG4, MP4, .AVI, .WMV, .MPEGPS, .FLV, 3GPP, and WebM.
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Video length max is 12 hours.
In-feed video
Video Guidelines
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Max file size: 5GB
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Minimum file size: 75KB
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Max video duration: 10 minutes
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Minimum video duration: 3 seconds
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Resolution range: 256x144 to 4096x2304
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Aspect ratio: 1:2.4 - 2.4:1
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Frame rates: 10fps - 60 fps
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Bit rates: 192 kbps - 30 Mbps
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Formats supported: ASF, AVI, FLV, MPEG-1, MPEG-4, MKV, QuickTime, WebM, H264/AVC, MP4, VP8, VP9, WMV2, and WMV3.
Social media video is forever changing and adapting. Be sure to check back every year for updates to platform standards. For example, just earlier this year IGTV announced it’s new support of landscape video, when previously, it was only vertical!
