Social media has taken the world by storm, attracting the attention of businesses as an effective way to promote themselves online. One popular source of gaining an audience’s attention is by publishing videos. However, each platform is different and the videos must be optimized for how they are viewed on each social media platform.

Are you unsure how to structure your videos for a certain social media platform? Do you find it difficult to remember the video requirements for each platform? Don’t worry, in this article, we break down the video specifications and requirements for Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube.

The main difference across platforms is the video’s aspect ratio size. However, every video should be exported at 30 frames per second, 1080p resolution, and in MP4 file format.

 

Facebook

Let’s begin with one of the biggest social media giants, Facebook. Facebook users love to scroll quickly through their feed so you have to catch their attention fast! 

Having a powerful introduction is critical to grab the viewer’s attention. One hook technique that you can try is to splice together a quick montage of clips pulled from the video. Like a sneak preview or trailer for a TV show. Providing your audience a quick preview of the video can entice them to keep watching.

Your Facebook videos should be on the shorter side. We recommend one to two minutes in length to appeal to a shorter attention span. 

The aspect ratio for Facebook videos is 16:9.

Another factor to consider with Facebook videos is subtitles. A large number of viewers on Facebook watch videos without audio. Adding subtitles to your video will allow people to enjoy the entire message of your video without turning on the volume. 

Think about it. Imagine that you are coming home from work on public transit. You’re scrolling through your social newsfeed. You see an interesting video but you don’t want to disturb your neighbors. If the video has subtitles, you are far more likely to keep watching. Without subtitles, you might think that you will come back later to watch the video. But will you? Really? Not very likely.

Highlights:

• Attractive intro
• Subtitles
• 1 to 2 minutes in length
• 16:9 aspect ratio

 

LinkedIn

LinkedIn viewers consume content that is short and concise. The ideal video length for LinkedIn is approximately one to three minutes long. Viewers on LinkedIn consume information that is direct, to the point, and adds value. Since LinkedIn is a professional business network, educational videos do really well. Make sure that your videos are packed with valuable information in a short amount of time.

The use of hashtags is gaining popularity on LinkedIn. Using hashtags will help others discover you, your content, and your videos. The hashtags you use on LinkedIn should be short, relevant, and easily readable. For more about hashtags, check out the article 5 Social Media “Sins” You Might Be Making!

Again, remember that LinkedIn is a professional, business network, so branding is also important for LinkedIn. Your videos should feature an intro and outro that are created with your organization’s official fonts and color theme.

The aspect ratio for LinkedIn videos is 16:9.

Highlights:

• 1 to 3 minutes in length
• Educational videos
• Use hashtags
• Use your brand
• 16:9 aspect ratio

 

Instagram

There are several ways to post video content on Instagram, but we’ll focus on the main two which are page posts and stories.

When you post a video on Instagram as a page post, the maximum video length is one minute. If you have created a video that is longer than one minute, then you’ll need to create a shorter version for your Instagram page. If you still want to direct attention to the longer version of your video, tell people where to find it in the description of your post.

The aspect ratio for videos for page posts is 1:1.

When you post stories on Instagram, the maximum video length is 15 seconds. If you want to post a video on your story that’s more than 15 seconds then you’ll have to cut the video into seperate clips. You can use an app to separate the video into 15 seconds clips such as CutStory.     

You are also able to post live video onto your Instagram story. Live content is huge right now! Live video has gained so much popularity and seems to really drive engagement because it allows you to interact with people in a very honest and raw way. Think about it, when you’re watching someone on live video, it feels like you’re right there next to them. People love to see this unpolished, “behind the scenes” type content and it can go a long way to help you build that know, like, and trust factor with people.

The aspect ratio for Instagram stories are 9:16.

We covered a more in depth look on the different methods on how to post effectively on Instagram that you can read here.

Highlights:

• Less than 1 minute in length for posts
• 15 second maximum for stories
• Use live video to improve engagement
• 1:1 aspect ratio for page posts
• 9:16 aspect ratio for stories

 

YouTube

YouTube’s main metric for measuring a video’s success is the total watch time. YouTube likes videos that keep people on YouTube and rank them higher in the search results page. To increase your total watch time on your videos you should create longer videos for YouTube, approximately around the nine minute mark.

Try to pick a relevant keyword for each of your videos and put it in the title, description, and tags of your video. Also have the keyword spoken in your video because Google and YouTube are able to analyze what is spoken in your video without any transcript.

Another important factor is to engage with your audience by reminding them to like, comment, favourite, or subscribe. When audiences engage with your video, it helps improve the popularity of your video.

The aspect ratio for YouTube videos is 16:9.

We covered a more in depth look on how to improve your video’s ranking on YouTube and how to structure your YouTube videos in previous articles.

Highlights:

• 9 minutes in length
• Repeat keywords
• Engage with viewers
• 16:9 aspect ratio

 

Conclusion

Here is a recap of the different aspect ratios and video tips for each social media platform.

At Learn to Flourish we are all about creating relevant, engaging, and effective eLearning and videos. If you want to increase the quality of your educational videos, get our free training on how to make great demonstration videos for your audience.

 

For more tips on video and eLearning creation, check out our blog for more articles such as How To Rank Higher on YouTube or Video Marketing Tips For Instagram and how to create online education that people will love.

Wishing you inspiration, innovation, and continuous learning,

Lorena and the Learn to Flourish Team