Social Media Image and Video Tips for 5 Social Platforms

In the tech age where almost everyone has a smartphone, communication and cross-cultural engagement have increased significantly. In the old days, you'd have to dial a phone and pay the exorbitant international charges to communicate with someone overseas. Now, it's as simple as opening Facebook messenger and using your wifi connection to video call them! Tweet @, DM (direct message), like, comment, share and mash the subscribe button - it's practically everywhere. To put in perspective, 3.96 billion people are active social media users. That's half of the world's population.

With the methods for communicating through social platforms in mind, we know that there are more efficient ways to engage followers and produce content. Below, we've listed some general demographic statistics brought to you by SPROUTSOCIAL, along with some tips and tricks for social posts.

Facebook

• Facebook (FB) has about 2.9 billion users, 1.96 of which are active daily on the site
• The largest age group among users are between 25-34 (31.5%)
• Gender breakdown: 43% female and 57% male (this doesn't include data on other genders)
• The average time spent on the platform is 33 minutes per day

Once you understand the demographic as a whole, you can begin making posts for your targeted audience. If you know that the average time spent on FB is 33 minutes per day, then you should create easily digestible content. Understanding your business' demographic helps you construct an effective social marketing strategy. Throw a few bait posts out there and see what gets the clicks up. Once you get your results, you'll know who to target specifically.  

When providing content, make sure that your images and videos are correctly sized.

Facebook Image Tips and Tricks

• Profile Photo 180 x 180 pixels (px)
• Cover Photo 820 x 462 px
• Mobile Cover 820 x 460 px
• Shared Image 200 x 630 px

Facebook Video Tips and Tricks

• Always upload the highest-resolution video possible
• Maximum Facebook Width: 120 px
• Supported Facebook aspect ratios: 16:9 (horizontal) to 9:16 (full portrait)
• Uploading videos in .MP4 and .MOV format
• Videos can be up to 240 minutes long
• The video can be up to 4GB large
• A maximum frame rate of 30fps

Instagram

• About 2 billion monthly active users.
• The largest age group is similar to FB with 25-34 at 31.2%, with 18-24 at 31%
• Gender breakdown: 48.4% female and 51.6% male (this doesn't include data on other genders)
• The average time spent on the platform is 29 minutes per day
• Reels are the most popular form of audience engagement

This information should highly influence posts that businesses create. Reels gaining popularity as the "new hotness" shows that people enjoy quick cuts and condensed videos. You might think that it could be difficult to advertise a product or service in less than 10 seconds, but it's becoming more viable and logical to do so. It's all about communicating through simple, eye-catching images.

Instagram Image Tips and Tricks

• Profile Photo 150 × 150 px
• Sharing Image 1080 × 1080 px

Instagram Video Tips and Tricks

• Always upload the highest-resolution video possible
• There are three types of video ratios you can post on Instagram: square (1:1), vertical (9:16 or 4:5) and horizontal (16:9) *the square 1:1 ratio is especially popular with marketers*

• The minimum width allowed is 500 px
• Upload videos in .MP4 or .MOV format
• Use a maximum file size of 30MB
• A maximum length of 120 seconds
• A maximum frame rate of 30fps

TikTok

• TikTok is the largest growing platform since its inception in 2016 with over 1 billion users
• The platform appeals mainly to Gen. Z with 25% of users being between the ages of 10-19
• Gender breakdown: 61% female and 39% male (this doesn't include data on other genders)
• The average user spends nearly 90 minutes per day on the TikTok

TikTok has taken social media by storm growing at a clip of 87.1% in 2020 and 18.3% in 2021 respectively. The biggest takeaway from the data is that TikTok's main demographic is younger than all other platforms (except Snapchat, but we're not including their platform in our data). TikTok's influence bleeds into other platforms with content being easily shareable and digestible. Brands and businesses should take notice when appealing to our tech-savvy generation.

Because TikTok has such a unique post strategy, pixels and formats aren't the main focus for this section.

TikTok Video Tips and Tricks

• Upload high-resolution videos (unless you're following some trend where using low-res is part of the shtick)
• Be aware of what's trending and cater posts to those trends
• Hashtags are important and provide authority when posting
• Notice when your followers are most active
• Keep posts short and entertaining
• While you can edit videos through 3rd party editing suites, your posts will likely take place through your mobile device
• Dimensions for video should be 1080 x 1920 px with an aspect ratio of 9:16 (the standard for a smartphone screen)

Once again, TikTok has an extremely different demographic so your posts might not be as successful or useful on this platform as they would be on others.

LinkedIn

• LinkedIn has 810 million active monthly users
• The platforms largest age group lies between 24-34 (58.4%)
• Gender breakdown: 48% female and 52% male (this doesn't include data on other genders)
• 63% of users access the platform weekly while 22% are active daily

LinkedIn is widely considered as the social media platform for businesses, organizations and professionals alike. It provides major networking opportunities for leads and connections. Businesses customize their pages and use it as the top-rated source for B2B marketing. Having a well devised content marketing strategy for LinkedIn is important since so many businesses communicate through the platform.

LinkedIn Image Tips and Tricks

• Profile Picture 400 x 400 px
• Banner or Background Photo 1584 x 396 px
• Company Cover Image 1128 x 191 px
• Company Logo Size 300 x 300 px
• Company Main Image 1128 x 376 px
• Company Custom Modules 502 x 282 px
• Company Photos 900 x 600 px
• Article Featured Image 1200 x 644 px

LinkedIn Video Tips and Tricks

• Video sizes should be between 256 x 144 px (min) and 4096 x 2304 px (max)
• Actual file sizes should be between 75 KB to 200 MB
• Maximum video length should be no longer than 10 minutes

For more information on how to present yourself or your business through LinkedIn, check out this ARTICLE by Sarah Clay!

Twitter

• 211 million daily active users
• Largest age group 18-29 (42%)
• Gender breakdown: 38.4% female and 61.6% male (this doesn't include data on other genders)
• The average user spends 31 minutes per day on Twitter

Twitter is arguably the best platform for discussing events and filling your feed with breaking news from whatever genre interests you. While growth remains consistent from year to year, the research predicts that Twitter will lose about a million users to other platforms over the next five years. These stats make advertising tricky because most tweets are discussion driven, but an ad that follows the character count and spurs discussion is a plausible strategy to create traffic.

TWITTER IMAGE TIPS AND TRICKS

• Profile Photo 400×400
• Header Photo 1500×500
• Sharing Image 900×450

TWITTER VIDEO TIPS AND TRICKS

• Always upload the highest-resolution video possible.
• Twitter has been optimized for videos from handheld capture.
• The recommended Twitter video ratio is 1:1 (1200 x 1200 pixels).
• MP4 for web or MOV format for mobile.
• The maximum length is 140 seconds
• Maximum file size 1GB
• Frame rate 29.97 or 30 fps

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Social media is a remarkable place for people and businesses alike. Using it as a tool for your business will definitely drive your marketing strategies to new heights when used properly.

We hope this data analysis provides a reasonable glance at social media demographics and that our tips and tricks will help you create the best content for your followers.

If you need help creating video content or have an event that you want to show off to your followers, contact BW Productions! We'll help you design a plan for your video, staff your event for a live-stream and provide excellent photography for your social posts. WORK WITH US today!

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