What You Need To Know When Creating Social Media Videos

Post Production Business 24/02/2018 2 min read

Getting your videos out into the world is easier than ever, thanks to a range of social media channels that can house your videos. In the past, we’ve talked about best practices for uploading to YouTube, but what about Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter?

As luck would have it, each of these social media platforms has its own guidelines for video uploads, some recommendations, and some requirements. We’ll break down what each site wants from you so you can better prepare your videos for social media.

Facebook

Facebook is the biggest player for video in the social media world. Users can update video to their feeds or they can buy a video ad to play across Facebook. There are also several tools in place to help you pick who will see your video ads.

But when it comes to uploading, Facebook has several specs that they either recommend or require. Below are a list of those specs.

Aspect Ratios Supported: 16:9 (full landscape) to 9:16 (full portrait)
Recommended Aspect Ratio: 1.77:1 / 16:9 / HDTV, 2:39:1 or 2:40:1 / Widescreen / 9:16, 1:1 / 1.33:1 / 4:3 / SDTV, 1.375:1 / film, 1.85:1 / Film, no pillar boxing or letterboxing (Some aspect ratios may be rendered differently to fit the newsfeed)
Video Compression: H.264, square pixels, fixed frame rate, progressive scan
Video Format: .mp4 container
Audio Format: Stereo AAC audio compression, 128kbps + preferred
Maximum Length: 120 minutes
Frame Rate: 30fps max
File Size: 4GB max / 1.75GB max for ads

Twitter

Twitter can be another great resource for uploading and sharing videos. However, they have their own set of specs to adhere to. The biggest thing to note when uploading video to Twitter is that they require much shorter videos with smaller file sizes to Facebook. Below are the recommended and requires specs for uploading videos than Twitter.

Aspect Ratios Supported: Between 1:3 and 3:1
Resolutions Supported: Between 32×32 and 1280×1024
Video Compression: Square Pixel
Audio Compression: mono or stereo / AAC
Maximum Length: 30 seconds (sync) / 140 seconds (async)
Frame Rate: 40fps or less
File Size: 15mb (sync) / 512mb (async)

Instagram

While Instagram became famous for photo sharing, they did add the ability to upload a video to their platform. Of course, Instagram is all about quick glances, so their specs require even shorter videos and smaller file sizes the above two. Here are the recommendations and requirements for Instagram video uploads.

You may note that since Instagram is owned by Facebook, most of the specs are the same, with the exception of video length. Instagram also suggests 1:1 video aspect ratio. This is a square video for proper viewing inside of Instagram.

Aspect Ratios Supported: Landscape (1.91:1), Square (1:1), Vertical (4:5)
Recommended Aspect Ratio: 1:1
Video Compression: H.264, square pixels, fixed frame rate, progressive scan
Video Format: .mp4 container
Audio Format: Stereo AAC audio compression, 128kbps + preferred
Maximum Length: 60 seconds
Frame Rate: 30fps max
File Size: 4GB max


Sharing your videos on social media is the best way to gain traction and find new viewers, but be sure to check all of the specs before uploading and create alternate versions for each platform if you want to have the best-looking video you can out in the social media world.