X (formerly known as Twitter) is where the internet comes to talk. It’s one of the fastest-moving social media platforms, dictating the news and leading internet culture through trends and hashtags. This platform is unlike any other social media website when it comes to advertising and digital strategy. You want your brand to feel organically part of the conversation while incorporating paid ads to attract your target demographic.
Optimising your social media images is crucial to stopping the scroll and boosting engagement. Understanding image sizes and specifications for X/Twitter is essential to producing content that will convert and showcase your brand.
This cheat sheet guide to Twitter/X image sizes and specs covers everything you need to know about optimal aspect ratios, image sizes, and video specifications. Need to make Twitter/X ads quickly? Sign up to AdsPlanner.ai to create social media ads that convert across the 10 top advertising platforms.
Advertising on Twitter is one of the most underutilised strategies for digital marketing. The platform has over 360 million monthly active users, with almost 40% of its audience made up of 25 to 34-year-olds.
While it’s likely not the first platform you think of for digital marketing, almost 90% of people use Twitter to search for new products, with 50% of 16 to 24-year-olds using it for brand research. The Twitter Shopping beta program shows the platform’s aspiration to rival its competitors, including TikTok and Meta, to sell products directly to users.
Twitter ads can:
There are three targeting options available on X/Twitter:
Text posts are the backbone of Twitter and the perfect way to build a conversation with your audience. Native text ads feel like an organic part of the conversation and read less like traditional ads. A Twitter/X text post should be 280 characters to allow it to be fully displayed without a ‘read more’ option. If you’re including a link in the copy, the character count for the copy drops to 257 characters.
Almost 80% of Twitter users have bought something based on conversations they’ve had on the platform. Images are the best way to stop users from scrolling and to showcase products or services. Image ads on Twitter are marked as ‘promoted’ and can be liked, replied to, and retweeted.
The recommended size and specs for image ads:
File types: PNG and JPEG are recommended
Tweet copy: 280 characters. Each link reduces this by 23 characters
File size: maximum 5MB
Image size: 1200 x 1200 pixels for a 1:1 aspect or 1200 x 628 pixels for a 1.91:1 aspect ratio.
Aspect ratio: 1:1 or 1.91:1
When you add a link to a tweet, X crawls your website to select a relevant image to display on the feed. Clicking this image will take users directly to your website. You’ll need an image on your website page that is correctly sized for Twitter cards to ensure it is displayed optimally.
The recommended size and specs for Twitter Cards:
Image size: minimum 300 x 157 pixels and maximum 4096 x 4096 pixels
Aspect ratio: 2:1
File size: maximum 5MB
Twitter video ads can boost views by up to 95% and increase a video’s total watch time by over 80%. Tweets with videos generate 9 times more engagement and are crucial to your digital marketing strategy to promote products, events, or share behind-the-scenes and educational content.
The recommended size and specs for Twitter videos:
Aspect ratio: Twitter supports 1:1, 4:3, and 16:9 ratios, with the latter being the recommended choice for video ads.
File size: maximum 1 GB, but Twitter recommends less than 30 MB for optimal performance.
File types: MOV or MP4
Video length: Twitter supports up to 2:20 as standard but recommends 15 seconds or less for advertising. Premium accounts can upload videos up to 10 minutes, but Twitter recommends a maximum of 9:55 duration to account for video files.
Frame rate: 29.97FPS or 30FPS.
Videos that are under 60 seconds will automatically loop and reply. Twitter recommends using closed captioning or text overlays, as 80% of viewers are more likely to watch a video in full when it uses subtitles.
Carousel ads are among the most versatile on Twitter, giving you up to 6 horizontal swipeable images or videos to showcase your brand and highlight products.
The recommended size and specs for Twitter videos:
Number of slides: 2 to 6 images or videos
Media size: 800 x 418 pixels for images or videos with a 1.91:1 aspect ratio OR 800x 800 pixels for a 1:1 aspect
Aspect ratio: Should remain consistent across mixed media carousels, with 1:1 aspects being the most recommended.
Link: one destination for single-destination carousels with up to six destinations available for multi-destination carousels.
Take your story one step further by highlighting different perspectives with Moment Ads. You can curate, create, and promote a series of tweets to take the story beyond 280 characters and individual posts.
The size and dimensions for Moment Ads apply to the specific tweets you’re highlighting. Please see the guides above to choose the correct specifications for each Tweet.
Put your brand at the heart of the conversation with a Trend Takeover ad. These immersive ads are displayed alongside trending topics on the Explore tab for maximum exposure.
The recommended size and specs for Trend Takeover+ ads:
File types: 6-second looping GIF, static image, or MP4
Aspect ratio: 16:9
File size: 5MB for images and 15MB for gifs
Trend hashtag: 16 characters max
Trend description: 30 characters max
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