Social Media Video Aspect Ratios Guide
Each social media platform supports different aspect ratios for video content.
Understanding social media aspect ratios is essential for running successful video marketing campaigns. If you don’t pay attention to aspect ratios while creating content, your videos might get cropped or resized without your knowledge to meet the requirements of the platform. To avoid this, you should get acquainted with the most popular social media aspect ratios.
Here are the main social media aspect ratios every video content creator should know about.
Social Media Aspect Ratios You Need to Know
Here are the main aspect ratios for video on all major social media platforms.
YouTube
YouTube favors the 16:9 aspect ratiofor most of its channels, including videos, video ads, and display ads. It also supports content uploaded in 4:3 aspect ratio, but it is automatically ‘pillarboxed’, i.e. black bars are added to the sides to make up for the shorter width of the frame.
The newly-introduced YouTube Shorts feature favor a slightly different aspect ratio, namely 9:16. Shorts are intended primarily for mobile users, and the lopsided aspect ratio reflects that.
Instagram supports a variety of aspect ratios for video, depending on the feature.
For the main feed video (content and ads included), Instagram supports 1:1 (square), 16:9 (landscape), and 4:5 (vertical) aspect ratios.
For Instagram Stories, Reels, and Story ads, to only supported aspect ratio is 9:16.
Instagram Video Carousel ads are limited to the square 1:1 aspect ratio.
Finally, IGTV video support both 9:16 and 16:9, while in-feed previews show up at 4:5.
TikTok
TikTok has only two categories of video content: organic videos and feed ads.
Organic videos are displayed vertically in 9:16. They also support 1:1 aspect ratio uploads, albeit with automatic letterboxing (black bars added to the top and bottom of the video).
TikTok adds support all three major aspect ratios, 9:16, 1:1, and 16:9.
Facebook stands apart from other social media platforms with its extensive support for different aspect ratios.
The basic Facebook video post supports three aspect ratios. The default landscape ratio is 16:9. The portrait aspect ratio is 9:16. If viewed on mobile devices, the ratio instead becomes 2:3.
Facebook also supports 360 video in the main feed. There are two aspect ratios that work: 2:1 (for monoscopic video), and 1:1 (for stereoscopic video).
Facebook feed video ads support similar aspect ratios to regular posts. You can choose between full portrait (9:16), horizontal (16:9), square (1:1), and vertical (4:5 or 2:3).
In the case of carousel video ads, the only supported ratio is 1:1.
On mobile, collection video ads also support 1:1.
Facebook Instant Experience ads support the standard vertical aspect ratio of 9:16, with pillarboxing enabled for uploads in other aspect ratios.
Facebook Slideshow ads support all three major aspect ratios: 16:9, 4:5, and 1:1.
Finally, Facebook Stories (both ads and organic content) support 1:1.91 and 9:16.
Twitter is not primarily a video platform, so it only has two video formats of note: video posts and video ads. Both support 16:9 (landscape), 9:16 (portrait), and 1:1 (square).
LinkedIn has limited support for video uploads with only two features of note: video posts and video ads.
For video posts, LinkedIn supports two aspect ratios: 1:2.4 and 2.4:1.
As for video ads, all standard aspect ratios are supported: landscape (16:9), square (1:1), and vertical (9:16).
Snapchat
We’re long past the heyday of Snapchat, but the platform still gets enough views to merit inclusion in our guide.
There are only two video formats supported on the platform: single video ads (supported ratio 9:16) and long-form video ads (supports both 16:9 and 9:16).
Pinterest is primarily an image-sharing platform. It has limited support for video, and video ads. Both share the same aspect ratios, including 1:1, 2:3, 4:5, and 9:16.
Conclusion
Video aspect ratios are a small but essential component of video marketing. Their role is to ensure that your content looks as good as possible on your social media platforms of choice. As we’ve seen see, most platforms support the standard aspect ratios of 1:1, 16:9, and 4:5. This means that it’s fairly easy to re-use your video content across different platforms. And if you ever need a reminder on which platform supports which aspect ratio, you can always check back here.
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