Choosing the best image size for each channel will help increase engagement and make sure your users see the image as you intended. This article guides you through the minimum requirements for images and link previews/thumbnails of social media posts.
Table of contents
1. Image crop selection
StoryChief allows you to select a crop size for each channel separately. You can do so by hovering over an image of a post (eg. for Twitter) and clicking on the "Edit" button:
This will open a modal with our crop selection editor:
Resets the crop selection to the default state.
Allows you to see the image resolution and more precisely set the resolution values.
The list of the available aspect ratios for a specific social media channel. Clicking on an item will set the crop size. If the channel supports the aspect ratio of your image, an additional crop size called "Resized" will be available. This crop size allows you to only resize the image while keeping the content fully intact.
The current crop selection. You can drag-and-drop the selection so the important part of the image will be included in the cropped image. You can also drag the edges to change the crop selection size.
Save your changes you clicking "Save" or discard your changes by clicking "Cancel".
2. Smart crop images (automatic cropping)
Our smart cropping feature will select the best size and aspect ratio for each social media destination. StoryChief will also try to detect the most important part of the image to focus on.
You can access this feature by hovering over the postset image and clicking on the "Smart crop images" button:
Please note that channels with already applied image crop sizes will be skipped. You can also adjust an image for each channel individually after the process is done.
3. Image aspect ratio
Aspect ratio refers to the width of an image in relation to its height and is written in the form of width:height (eg. 4:5). It is important to make sure your images follow the recommended aspect ratios so the social media sites will display them perfectly.
Looking at the list below may make you stressed, but don't worry! StoryChief has got you covered and will offer you the recommended aspect ratios for each channel inside the app. Using our "Smart crop images", StoryChief will automatically select the best aspect ratio.
Facebook & LinkedIn
Portrait | 1:1.91 |
Landscape | 1.91:1 |
Portrait | 4:5 |
Landscape | 16:9 |
While for other social media channels, the aspect ratio is only a recommendation, for Instagram you will need to make sure it is between 4:5 and 16:9. Other social media sites may make adjustments to the image outside the recommended aspect ratio, but Instagram will reject it.
Posts: Twitter, GMB, Slack
1.77:1 | |
Google My Business | 9:5 |
Slack | 2:1 |
4. Minimum recommended image sizes
While posting smaller images than the recommended ones is possible, we do not recommend doing so as the images will not look great.
600 x 315px | |
200 x 105px | |
320 x 566px | |
600 x 335px | |
Google My Business | 497 x 373px |
5. Maximum image sizes
You will be prompted to resize images bigger than the maximum allowed size before publishing.
2048 x 2048px | |
Slack | 2048 x 2048px |
2048 x 2048px | |
Google My Business | 2048 x 2048px |
2048 x 1920px | |
1080 x 1350px |
6. Aspect ratio and size warnings
StoryChief will display warning messages below each post informing you if there is an issue with the selected image.
In the screenshot below you can see an error for the Facebook channel as the image is larger than 2048 x 2048 px:
You can fix the issue by either hovering over an image of a post (eg. for Twitter) and clicking on the "Edit" button or clicking on the "Fix issue" button next to the error message. In both cases, the crop selection editor will open. The editor will automatically limit the image size depending on each channel's limitations.
StoryChief will also show warnings when the image is smaller than the recommended size for that channel. In the screenshot below you can see a warning message for the Twitter channel as the image is too smaller than 600 x 335px:
These types of messages are only recommendations and you will still be able to publish the posts. Posting small images is not recommended as media sites may make adjustments to images outside of the recommended sizes which can result in poor image quality.