Video formats and sizes for social media

Uploading the same file everywhere is the fastest way to waste a production. A horizontal video in a vertical feed becomes a tiny strip in the middle of the screen, and a vertical one on your website forces people to watch through a slot. The good news: you really only need four aspect ratios, and they have not changed in years.

The four ratios that cover everything

• 9:16 vertical — 1080 × 1920 px. Full-screen on mobile: reels, shorts, TikTok, stories. Currently the one with the most organic reach.
• 4:5 cropped vertical — 1080 × 1350 px. The best performer in the Instagram and Facebook feed: more height than square without going full screen.
• 1:1 square — 1080 × 1080 px. Safe and neutral. Useful when one piece has to go to several networks and you do not want three versions.
• 16:9 horizontal — 1920 × 1080 px. YouTube, LinkedIn, your website, presentations and event screens. Still the format for “long” video.

If you get the delivery in 4K (3840 × 2160) you have room to crop to vertical without losing definition — worth asking for in the contract.

The safe zone: where not to put text

In vertical, the app interface covers the edges: the account name at the top, the caption, buttons and audio at the bottom. As a rule of thumb, on a 1080 × 1920 canvas leave roughly 250 px clear at the top and 400 px at the bottom, and keep text and logos inside that central rectangle. It is the most common mistake and the most expensive to fix: it means re-exporting everything.

Duration: what actually matters

Each platform’s maximum changes every few months, so memorising them is pointless. What stays constant is viewer behaviour:

• The first 3 seconds decide. If the video opens with a spinning logo, you have already lost half the audience.
• 15 to 30 seconds for a social piece chasing reach.
• 60 to 90 seconds to explain a product or a process.
• 1 to 2 minutes for the institutional video on your homepage.
• 3 minutes or more only once the audience has already decided they care: training, project documentaries, long testimonials.

Subtitles are not optional

A large share of mobile viewing happens with the sound off. If the message depends on the voice-over and there is no on-screen text, the video communicates nothing. Ask for burned-in subtitles — not a separate file — for the social versions, and keep them inside the safe zone.

How to shoot once and deliver everything

The key is framing, not the camera. If the shoot is composed with the vertical crop in mind — subject centred, headroom and footroom, nothing important at the left and right edges — a single set of footage works in all four formats. The opposite, force-cropping a shot designed only for 16:9, leaves cut-off heads and graphics outside the frame.

Define the versions you need before the shoot. Planning them costs almost nothing; redoing them later costs a whole edit.