How to Optimize Your Profile Photos Across Social Media

By Amy-Mae Elliott4 hours ago

Choosing your social media profile photos is an important task. They represent the physical you in the online world, while providing an all-important first impression to anyone viewing your profile.
In order to make the most of the available space, we took a look at how you can optimize your avatars and cover photos on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn and Google+.

See also: This Is Why No One Follows You on Twitter

Read our guidelines below, which include the optimum sizes for imagery across all sites, and some handy tips and tricks to bear in mind when choosing the right photographs.

Facebook

Facebook profile photos are cropped square, so we advise you to use an image that is already in this ratio — that way, you can avoid hastily cropping it right after you upload it. Profile pics are displayed at 160 x 160 pixels, but the image you upload must have minimum measurements of 180 x 180 pixels.
Cover photos come in at 851 x 315 pixels. While the minimum size is 399 x 150 pixels, images that are smaller than the optimum dimensions will get stretched and look awful.
Your profile photo is the one that's seen most around the site (next to posts, comments, etc.), so it's important that your choice works well as a small, standalone image. However, if you want to get creative by making your profile pic and cover image work together, note that your profile image displays 23 pixels from the left side and 210 pixels from the top of your cover photo.
If you're all about fast load times, it's worth noting that Facebook recommends your cover photo be an sRGB JPG file that's 851 pixels wide, 315 pixels tall and less than 100KB. If your image is logo- or text-based, then Facebook suggests using a PNG file to get higher quality results.

Twitter

Twitter displays profile photos really small, so it's important to choose an image that works in miniature. Twitter also uses square profile pics, so be sure to scale yours appropriately before you upload it.
While the maximum file size for a Twitter avatar is 2MB, it will show only as 73 x 73 pixels on your profile page and a teeny 48 x 48 pixels in tweets.
However, if people click through to your profile and then click on your avatar, it will show up larger (as it will in some Twitter clients), so it's worth uploading an image that will display bigger than the small, default sizes.
Twitter header photos can be up to 5MB in size. The recommended dimensions for these images are 1252 x 626 pixels. Bear in mind your Twitter account name, handle, bio, location and URL will all appear over your header image, so you need to consider choosing a photo that will work behind text and will not obscure the text.