Social Media Cheat Sheet 2025 — Keep Your Followers Engaged
2025-10-11
If you want your posts to look clean, sharp, and native everywhere, you need to start with the right dimensions.
Every platform has its own quirks — wrong ratios or compression can wreck engagement.
This Social Media Cheat Sheet 2025 keeps everything in one place: sizes, ratios, export settings, and upload tips for Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, X (Twitter), YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Threads.
Why it matters
People scroll fast.
When your video or image looks off — cropped text, blurry edges, wrong framing — they scroll right past.
That means:
- Fewer likes
- Less watch time
- Lower engagement overall
When you post using the correct format, it feels native to the platform and instantly performs better.
If you are using DontFollowBack, clean posting keeps followers interested — so you can focus on who leaves, not why your content flopped.
Recommended Dimensions (2025)
- Feed (Square) — 1080x1080 • 1:1 • 30 or 60 fps
H.264 MP4, 8–12 Mbps - Feed (Portrait) — 1080x1350 • 4:5
Best engagement ratio - Reels / Stories — 1080x1920 • 9:16 • 30–60 fps
Same export settings as Reels - Profile Image — 320x320 • 1:1
Displays circular on profile
- Feed (Square) — 1080x1080 • 1:1 • 30 fps
H.264 MP4, AAC audio - Feed (Portrait) — 1440x1800 • 4:5
Performs better than landscape posts - Story — 1080x1920 • 9:16
Vertical only - Cover Photo — 820x360 • 16:9 safe area
Keep text centered for all devices
X (Twitter)
- Post (Landscape) — 1200x675 • 16:9 • 30 fps
MP4 ≤ 512 MB - Post (Square) — 1200x1200 • 1:1
- Header Banner — 1500x500 • 3:1
TikTok
- Video / Cover Frame — 1080x1920 • 9:16 • 30–60 fps
H.264 MP4, 15–20 Mbps high bitrate
YouTube
- Video (Standard) — 1920x1080 or 3840x2160 (4K) • 16:9 • 24–60 fps
MP4 (H.264), AAC audio - Shorts — 1080x1920 • 9:16
Optimized for mobile - Thumbnail — 1280x720 • 16:9
≤ 2 MB JPG/PNG - Channel Banner — 2560x1440 (keep logos in 1546x423 safe zone)
- Feed Post — 1200x1200 • 1:1 • 30 fps
MP4 ≤ 200 MB - Cover / Banner — 1584x396 • 4:1
Profile background area - Profile Image — 400x400 • 1:1
- Standard Pin — 1000x1500 • 2:3 • 30 fps
JPG/PNG or MP4 (video pin) - Square Pin — 1000x1000 • 1:1
Threads
- Feed (Square) — 1080x1080 • 1:1 • 30 fps
Same as Instagram - Feed (Portrait) — 1080x1350 • 4:5
Quick Export Rules
Keep it native.
Always crop or frame your media before posting so it fits each platform’s native ratio.
A perfect 9:16 Reel looks sloppy if uploaded 16:9 — Instagram will auto-crop it and cut your text off.
Keep it short.
Engagement tanks after 15–20 seconds. Even if you have a minute, use the first 3 seconds to hook attention — motion, captions, or a face.
Keep it clear.
Avoid putting text or logos within 100px of the edges on vertical videos.
UI overlays (captions, buttons, usernames) can hide your design.
Keep it consistent.
Your ratio and framing style should match across platforms.
When someone sees your content on TikTok, then again on Reels, it should feel like the same creator — not a repost.
Pro Tip — Build Once, Export Many
Create everything in a master 1080×1920 canvas.
That single layout can be cropped down automatically into every needed format (square, 4:5, 16:9, banner, etc.) using:
- Photoshop Actions (smart layer crops)
- After Effects / Premiere export presets
- FFmpeg scripts that follow your JSON ratios
This gives you a one-click pipeline to batch-cut assets without manually resizing every time.
Example workflow:
- Build your creative in vertical 1080×1920.
- Run “Export Cuts” — your automation trims and exports all versions (square, landscape, etc.).
- Drop those files straight into platform-specific folders for upload.
It saves hours and keeps every platform perfectly optimized.
Why It Connects to DontFollowBack
Getting ratios right isn’t just about aesthetics — it’s about retention.
When your visuals look clean and load fast, followers are less likely to skip or mute you.
That directly ties into DontFollowBack Snapshots:
you’ll know any lost followers are real — not people leaving because your post looked broken, cropped, or stretched.
Clean presentation keeps your content credible.
Credibility keeps followers loyal.
Wrap-Up
Use this cheat sheet as your creative baseline.
Dial in your dimensions once, automate exports, and your content will always look native — no matter the platform.
Next time you compare Snapshots, you’ll see the truth clearly:
the ones who left didn’t unfollow because of bad formatting — they just weren’t genuine supporters to begin with.