Now that the “Twitter crop” is gone (or is it?) people are wondering: what are the perfect Twitter image sizes in 2024? Knowing this answer will help you stand out in a sea of image-challenged tweets.

Not too long ago Twitter also unveiled a massive redesign for its desktop app. That means it’s a great time to learn everything you need to know about image sizes in this new interface.

Once referred to as a micro blogging, Twitter has become a staple in the world of social media networks. It is a favorite among journalists and public figures who want to connect with an audience in the most accessible way possible.

Since Twitter is a fast-paced, high-volume content platform, visual media is a huge part of standing out.

As with my Facebook Image Sizes, and Instagram Image Sizes articles, I wanted to spend some time breaking down every Twitter image size possible. This way those of you savvy visual content creators can take advantage of Twitter’s visual marketing capabilities.

Table of contents:

• Twitter Crop
• Single Photo Upload
• Multiple Photo Upload
• Profile Picture Size
• Header Photo Size
• Twitter Cards
• Twitter Image Size Tips
• Twitter Image Templates
• Twitter Image Sizes Infographic
• Final Thoughts

Alright, let’s get into it!

Some Basic Image Recommendations

In this article I’ll be giving you the recommended image sizes to use. I say “recommended” because Twitter allows you to upload any size image you want (some limitations apply).

However, uploading an image that is too large can lead to poor upload quality, or undesired cropping. So knowing the recommended best sizes, and sticking to them, can ensure your uploaded photos look as good as they possibly can.

All the recommended sizes will be in pixels. The reason for this is that’s how Twitter sees them. For those who are used to designing images for print, this will be slightly different from what you are used to.

Additionally, if you’re accustomed to working with print quality image sizes, just note that my recommendations are measured in pixels. All resolutions are based on 72 pixels per inch. Or in other words, 72 dpi.

You do not need a higher resolution than 72 dpi. Despite huge advancements in screen resolution, 72 pixels per inch is still the lowest common denominator. As such, this is the resolution all social platforms will convert to.

Now, technically the resolution doesn’t even matter when it comes to images made for web. All that matters is the pixel dimensions. But, you have to set your graphic design software to something, right? Just use 72 DPI/PPI for smaller files sizes.

Okay, that being said, let’s talk Twitter image sizes. But first…

Let’s Talk About the Twitter Crop

On May 5, 2021, Twitter announced “bigger and better images on iOS and Android” in this tweet:

https://twitter.com/twitter/status/1390026628957417473?s=21

As per usual, Twitter was in a frenzy with reactions to the news. Most people assumed this meant that Twitter was no longer cropping tall images. “No crop” and “Twitter crop” was trending throughout the next 24hrs.

However, the crop still exists. It’s just changed to a taller crop.

After some rigorous testing—like four whole tweets worth—I found exactly where the crop happens.

As I demonstrate in this tweet thread, Twitter will crop your tall images at a maximum of 3:4 aspect ratio.

They had to draw the line somewhere, right? All it would take is one joker uploading a mile-long infographic. It would effectively take up your entire Twitter feed and we’d all be yelling, “bring back the crop!”

So it was an obvious and wise choice to draw the line they did with a 3:4 aspect ratio crop.

Now, let’s get into actual Twitter image sizes and optimal dimensions.

Twitter Image sizes: Uploads

Now let’s get into the various Twitter image sizes when adding images to your tweets. This can be tricky, but have no fear. We’ll get through this together.

Basically, Twitter will display your uploaded images in the tweet in different ways depending on:

1. The aspect ratio of the image
2. How many images are uploaded

So I’m going to break down all the possible twitter image sizes scenarios in painstakingly meticulous detail.

Single Photo Upload

Far-and-wide the most recommended Twitter image size is 1024px by 512px. The supported image formats include JPEG, PNG and GIF formats. Twitter will support image file sizes up to 5 MB. For animated GIFs the file size limit is 3 MB.

However, now that Twitter has updated its crop on uploaded photos, I recommend taking full advantage of it to capture more screen real estate. More screen real estate equals more attention.

My highest recommendation is to use a full 3:4 aspect ratio on your Twitter image uploads. I’ve found the best pixel dimensions for this to be 1080 by 1440 px.

You can download the image above, or get all my templates below to have an easy-access reference point.

“But Dustin, what if I upload a super wide image?”

Great question. And don’t call me butt Dustin.

After a bit of testing, I found that the crop on wide images also has a limitation.

Basically, if your image has an aspect ratio of >16:9, the sides of the image will get cropped to fit a landscape box. The aspect ratio is not clean, but just eye-balling it I’d say 16:9 is the closest.

A shame… I had some fun ideas for super wide images.

Multiple photo upload

You can upload a total of four images in a tweet. Depending on how many you upload, they display differently.

Twitter seems to default to landscape orientation crop. Uploading 2 or more images will always result in a cropped landscape display in the feed. If a user taps (or clicks) to expand an image, it will show in its original size/ratio.

Uploading two photos results in a 50/50 split between the images.

If you have three photos, the first photo will take up the left half. The other two will be vertically stacked on top of each other in the second half of the display area.

If you have four photos, they will all take up four equal parts of the image display area.

Unlike Facebook’s various multi-photo configurations, Twitter decided to keep things super simple.

Twitter Profile Picture Size

There’s no better place to start than with the one image that will accompany you everywhere on Twitter–your profile picture.

Profile pictures display in a range of sizes. Yours will be shown everywhere that one of your tweets is shown.

Your profile picture is going to be how people put a face (or a logo) to your brand. So take special care to make this a clear and accurate brand representation.

The standard image size for a Twitter profile picture is a 400 pixels wide by 400 pixels tall square image. You are also limited to a maximum file size of 2 MB.

Once uploaded, the image is automatically resized and cropped into a circle. If you upload a picture with a smaller dimension than the standard image size, Twitter does not allow resizing. Instead, it will show the image at its original size.

Make sure that the profile picture you choose does not have any important elements around the corners or edges. This way when it gets cropped into a circle, you won’t lose anything.

Your profile picture that is displayed on your profile page just above your bio is much smaller. It measures 134 pixels wide by 134 pixels tall.

The third profile image size is the profile image that is visible in your streams. Every time you tweet, your profile picture will appear right next to your tweet. In these instances it is a very small 49px by 49px picture.

The supported profile picture formats that are compatible with Twitter are PNG, GIF and JPEG image formats.

The important things to note here are:

1. Your profile photo will be cropped into a circle
2. Profile photos will be displayed in the app at a maximum of 134px by 134px
3. The minimum display for your Twitter profile photo is 49px by 49px.

So make sure that whatever photo you choose for your Twitter profile that it looks good cropped and resized to the aforementioned dimensions.

Bonus Tip: Use my Twitter Profile Photo Template (grab it at the bottom) to make sure your face is centered in the circled crop area. Extra credit if you place a colored border around the edge as it is a real attention-getter.

Twitter Header Photo

Cover photos are one of the best ways to make a strong impression for your brand. If someone takes the time to visit your Twitter profile page, you better make sure to take advantage of the giant header photo.

Now, let’s be clear–this header photo is not to be treated as a billboard. It is an opportunity to showcase your brand. Show your personality and make your profile page stand out.

If you only think of it as “free advertising space” you’re missing the real opportunity. People see banner ads all the time, and they’ve become numb to them. If you want your profile page to stand out–use this header photo to showcase your brand, not your latest sale.

Header Photo Size

The recommended image size for a header image on Twitter is 1500 pixels wide by 500 pixels tall.

This header photo will get resized and can become pixelated. Depending on the screen size, your profile header will get resized and cropped in different ways. Due to the vast amount of screen sizes, it’s hard to nail down the exact crop dimensions for all of them.

It’s important, therefore, to ensure that the most important part of your image is in the center, away from the edges. This will prevent things getting cropped out on different screen sizes.

You should also note that your profile picture is going to cover up a small section of the header image. The amount of space it will take up, again, depends on the device and screen size.

Lastly, inside the Twitter app there will be two interface elements that are laid on top of your header. Take this into account when creating your header image as well. The placement of these elements can vary depending on the device being used.

So I’ve created this template to help you keep all important items inside a “safe area.”

Twitter supports both PNG and JPG formats for your header photo. And the maximum file size for y our header photo cannot exceed 5 MB.

Twitter Card Photo Size

Most social networks have a way of displaying a preview of links shared on their platforms. Twitter is no different.

In most cases it will crawl a web page looking for the OG:image code in the page’s metadata. If it doesn’t find that metadata, it will attempt to use the first image it finds. The image must meet certain size specifications, though, in order to be used.

So let’s take a look at all the Twitter image sizes for cards.

Summary Card with Large Image

The minimum dimensions for a Summary Card with Large Image is 300px by 157px. However, Twitter recommends a 2:1 aspect ratio. The maximum allowed resolution is 4096px by 4096px and must be less than 5 MB.

The photo formats supported include JPG, PNG, and GIF. Don’t get too excited about GIF support though. If you hope to use a GIF for your Open Graph image, Twitter will only show the first frame.

This large image format is basically the default at this point. In order to not make it show up you’d basically have to only have a very small image on the page. And in that case you would have the following…

Summary Card (Small Image)

If Twitter doesn’t find an image that meets the 2:1 aspect ratio it may choose to display a small image card. The small image card will crop the image it finds to a 1:1 aspect ratio.

If visibility is what you are looking for, you definitely want to make sure you’re using the large image size on your websites.

Twitter Image Size Tips

There’s more to great Twitter images than just knowing the pixel dimensions. Here are a handful of tips to optimize your image use even further.

“Open for Surprise” Meme

Despite what a writer from The Verge thought, it’s still possible to do the “Open for Surprise” tactic with Twitter images. All you need to do is make the “surprise” part of the image outside the 3:4 aspect ratio center.

For example:

As you can see, the “Tap for Surprise” meme is still highly effective if you know where the Twitter crop is.

File Sizes

Twitter usually applies file size compression on the images you upload. This leads to an uploaded image with a lower quality than the original picture.

One way to lessen the effect of Twitter’s image compression is to optimize your images as much as you can before uploading them. Obviously keeping the dimensions as small as possible will help a lot.

Another way to reduce the image compression effects is to reduce the amount of gradients and colors. Gradients are typically more “heavy” in terms of their effect in file size.

The more colors you have, the more “weight” it adds to the file size as well. So keeping colors to a minimum helps reduce file size and therefore less compression is needed.

Twitter Image Templates

Oh, that’s right. You know I couldn’t do an entire article having to do with recommended image sizes and not offer free templates.

I’ve got an entire set of Twitter image templates that you can use as a blueprint. Just enter your email below, and I’ll send them straight to your inbox!

Oh, and since I just love creating visual cheat sheets for my image templates, here’s my Twitter image sizes infographic.

Embed this infographic on your website—just copy/paste the code below:

<a href="https://dustinstout.com/twitter-image-sizes/"><img src="https://dustinstout.com/free-resources/twitter-image-sizes-inforgraphic.jpg" alt="Twitter Image Sizes Infographic" /><p>Image courtesty of <a href="https://dustinstout.com">Dustin W. Stout</a>.</p></a>

This infographic will always stay as updated as this blog post. If there’s a change to Twitter’s image sizes, you don’t have to worry about it. This infographic will update automatically.

Final Thoughts On Twitter Images

Every tweet is an opportunity to connect with your audience, grow your community, and build your brand. If you’re not taking the time to craft content that serves that purpose, then you’re wasting your time.

Use your Twitter profile to showcase who you are, what you do, and who you serve. And do it in a way that is visually engaging. We don’t need another boring social media account that only talks about their products and services.

I hope you found my Twitter image sizes recommendations useful. Now go out there and created some amazing Twitter images! And be sure to tweet at me with what you created after reading this!

Also, don’t miss my top Twitter tips for beginners, as well as how to maximize Twitter lists for your marketing.

Back when your social media posts had strict character count limitations, sharing links to web pages was a bit stressful—especially on Twitter. That’s when short URLs became a necessity. Without them, you could share one link in a tweet and not have enough space to say anything meaningful about it.

To solve this problem, URL shorteners were a great solution. Free services like Bitly, Tinyurl, Is.gd, and many others started popping up to help us shrink our long, ugly URLs into short ones.

These days, character counts aren’t much of a concern. Twitter has not only extended its character limit to 280 (up from 140). On top of that, Twitter automatically adds its own branded link shortened to links.

And if that’s not enough, Twitter has also decided it doesn’t count links against your character count.

So why use short URLs at all anymore?

Furthermore, why go through all the trouble to set up custom short URLs with a branded (vanity) domain?

Well, my friend, that’s what I’m here to talk about. There are many more benefits to using short URLs in your social media posts. Smart marketers know they’re an essential piece of their day-to-day.

In this post, I’m going to give you all the angles to using short URLs in your social media posts. First, I’ll talk about generic short URLs and URL shorteners (such as Bitly and TinyURL). Let’s dig in!

Why Use a Short URL?

There are a handful of reasons you’d want to use a URL shortener (aka link shortener) instead of just pasting the long link into your social messages.

1. Less Cluttered Reading Experience

Website URLs can belong, sometimes obscure looking, and take up a lot of space. Depending on the link, it could completely ruin a smooth reading experience.

Additionally, if they website whose link you’re sharing has hideous URL structure, it may even come off as spammy or disreputable.

Shorter links take up less space and are easier to add in-line while not obscuring the reading.

2. Tracking Link Clicks

In addition to the aesthetic though, most URL shortening services add analytics tracking into the links so you can monitor metrics such as:

• Number of clicks on the link
• Timeline of clicks
• Where the link was shared/clicked most
• Who shared the link

By tracking these metrics, you can gain valuable insight as to what your audience is responding to, where they’re responding to it and who it is that is responding.

If you’re not measuring how well your content is performing, you can’t effectively improve it.

3. Customizing the link “slug”

Sometimes when you have a link that you want to share, it’s nice to be able to remember it for later use easily. Or, maybe you want the people who see it to have an easy way to remember it if they can’t type it in right away.

Most link shorteners offer a way for you to customize what is referred to as the “slug.” The slug is what appears after the final slash in the URL. So, for example:

https://dustn.xyz/youtube

The slug portion of that URL is youtube. This makes it super easy to reuse these URLs and even share them when people can’t click on them—like in a slide presentation. Many speakers have used this strategy to give their audience an easy way to jot down links during a presentation.

4. Easy Specialized Tracking with UTM Codes

Okay, so this is mostly for more advanced use cases and those who want to track specific campaigns in their website analytics program (such as Google Analytics).

Wouldn’t it be a good idea to know which social networks are sending you the most clicks? Or maybe you want to know if a specific kind of message performs better than others. Google Analytics doesn’t always show you this information in an easy way (or with 100% accuracy). In this case, you’d want to add a what’s known as UTM tracking codes at the ends of your links.

UTM tracking allows you to pass specific information into Google Analytics (or other analytics software) to measure the results of each particular link you’ve shared across the web.

Here is an example of what UTM tracking would look like at the end of a URL:

https://dustinstout.com/find-free-images/?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=ShortURLs

Starting with the question mark, this is what’s known as a UTM string. Here’s a breakdown of what that string of text after the last / is going to record in Google Analytics:

• utm_source = Shown as “Source” in GA, this tells us what website or social network the link was shared on
• utm_medium = Shown as “Medium” in GA, this tells us what type of “medium” the place we share this link was (examples: social, email, messenger)
• utm_campaign = Shown as “Campaign” in GA, this is used for when you’re running different types of campaigns (such as ad campaigns, influencer campaigns, email campaigns) so you can see which campaigns are the most successful.

Some services (such as Agorapulse, Buffer, and CoSchedule) will automatically add these UTM tracking codes to shortened links making the process extremely efficient. You don’t need to go through any extra trouble to create the UTM codes, they’re just automagically added.

Basically, adding these UTM parameters to your shared URLs makes them even longer and less attractive. But if you’re using a URL shortener, these parameters are shortened along with the link and are invisible to everyone.

You get the benefit of advanced tracking for your analytics without the risk of making your links look spammy.

For more on the subject, my friend Robert Nissenbaum has written a comprehensive article on using UTM codes to improve your marketing.

Where Can I Shorten My Links?

Over the years there have been tons of link shortening services that have popped up. Honestly, most of them don’t bring much to the table as far as differentiation.

At the end of this article, I’ll tell you who my number one pick is (and why). Until then, here are the most popular URL shorteners:

1. Bitly | URL Shortener, Custom Links & Link Analytics

Bitly is probably the most popular of all the stand-alone link shortening services. They paved the way in the industry with their extremely short domain, bit.ly.

They further solidified themselves in the marketplace by integrating with third-party services via their API, so you didn’t have to visit their website to shorten your links. Social Media Management tools such as Buffer, Hootsuite, and others were among the first to jump on the Bitly API and allow their users’ links to be shortened automatically when composing a message.

Their analytics and tracking are pretty great also. The dashboard is beautiful to look at, and you can see lots of information about how your links are spreading across the internet.

Bitly’s downfall, however, has always been its business model. Because it started with such a generous free offering, they really struggled to find the right price point to make revenue. Over the years, this has resulted in a steep decline in how many links free users can create.

Despite its pricing woes, it still remains one of the most popular link shorteners around.

Pro tip: If you ever see a Bitly link that someone else has shared, and you want to know how many clicks it’s gotten, just add a + to the end of the URL and enter it. You’ll be able to see all the analytics for that shortened link.

Now, if you don’t want people seeing your link stats, this may be one reason not to use Bitly.

2. TinyURL | Shorten that long URL into a tiny URL

This site has been around for as long as Bitly, if not longer. Links are shortened with the domain name tinyurl.com which is by far the longest domain name of all the link shorteners out there.

Not to knock them too much, though, because one thing they’ve mastered is simplicity. Enter a link, click the “Make TinyURL” button and you’re done.

It’s a free service with no limitations on how many links you can shorten. The drawback, however, is that’s absolutely all you can do with it. No analytics, no click tracking, no help with building UTM parameters.

Nothing. Just shorten your link, and you’re on your merry way.

3. Is.gd | A URL shortener

This is probably the most basic of all the URL shorteners. Is.gd has been around for a long time and is one of the shorter domains for shortening your links.

You can customize the slug of your short links, and you can even activate tracking on your links—you have to manually open these advanced settings before shortening your link, though.

If you’ve checked the box to log statistics for your link, you just need to add a - to the end of the short URL to see the stats. But, of course, just like with Bitly, this means anyone can see your stats too.

4. YOURLS | Your Own URL Shortener

For those who don’t want to place their URL shortening on someone else’s server, there’s YOURLS. It is free, open-source software that you can install on your own web server.

It gives you 100% control of your URLs, which domains that you use, and the data that your shortened URLs gather.

For the less tech-savvy, however, this is definitely not the best option as it requires PHP knowledge and knowing a good amount of web development practices. There are a lot of deeply geeky features that you can take advantage of, however, so if you have a developer, this may be an attractive option for you.

5. BL.INK | Free URL shortener, Branded URLs, Smart Links & Link Management

Now, BL.INK is the first link-shortener on this list that allows you to actually purchase and manage your short domain names through its platform. This makes it super easy to do what we’ll talk about in the next section—custom short URLs.

In addition to buying and managing custom domains, BL.INK also offers advanced features such as being able to dynamically redirect links based on the device, language, or date in which your links are being clicked.

Lastly, BL.INK offers advanced analytics and will integrate with Google Analytics (and other analytics as well). I haven’t actually used BL.INK, but I expect that this Google Analytics integration is along the lines of UTM tracking as I mentioned previously.

6. Rebrandly | URL Shortener, Branded Link Management

By far, my favorite link-shortener of them all is Rebrandly. It’s the most powerful, most comprehensive, and full-featured link shortener I’ve found.

Rebrandly offers the same level of link-shortening, customizing the slug (or “slashtag” as they call it), and analytics of the previous services. They also offer the ability to buy and manage custom short domains right on their platform, so there is no technical setup to getting your own branded short URLs.

But unlike any other link shortener I’ve tried, Rebrandly offers a few powerful features that were total game-changers for me.

Built-in UTM builder

If you’re not a pro at building UTM strings, Rebrandly will help you build them into your links when you go to shorten them.

Click on the “UTM” icon and fill in the fields. You really only need Source, Medium, and Campaign. The Term and Content fields are optional.

You can also save this as a preset to save time the next time you need to create the same UTM string.

Some examples of how I use presets are:

• Links added to my Instagram profile
• Links added to YouTube video descriptions
• Links for Facebook ad campaigns

I absolutely love this feature, and it’s saved me so much time in the long run.

Add notes to links for internal purposes

If you want to add an internal memo about a particular link, Rebrandly gives you that ability. This can be super helpful, especially if you’re working in a team and you need to pass along additional information about links.

I don’t use this feature much with my small team, but it’s nice to know I have the ability when I need it.

Use Tags to organize your links

If you’re an organization nut like I am, you’ll love the ability to tag your links. This is a great way to group specific types of links so you can find them easily later on.

You can also build custom analytics reports of links based on tags, making reporting super intelligent.

Create Routing Rules for hyper-targeted links

If you’re a super savvy marketer and you want to create rules based on things like country, device, language, date, day of the week, or hour of the day you can!

So if you have both an English and a Spanish version of a link you want to send people to, you can easily set a routing rule based on those parameters.

This is great for time-sensitive links.

For example, let’s say you’re running a giveaway (which I’ll be doing for the post), and that giveaway ends on a specific day. You can set the link to go to your giveaway landing page up until the day it ends, and then after that, it will go to a different landing page.

Amazing, right?!

Oh, but that’s not the most significant game-changing feature for me. This next feature is what has me hooked on Rebrandly.

Add Retargeting Scripts (i.e. Facebook pixels) to the shortened links

Let’s say you’re sharing a link to Social Media Examiner’s latest Facebook marketing article. Your followers will click the link, read the article, and that’s the end of it.

Since you don’t own Social Media Examiner (unless you’re reading this and your name is Michael Stelzner... hi, Mike!), you can’t retarget the people who are interested in that article. Since it’s not your site, you can’t place your Facebook retargeting pixel on the site.

Unless you’ve used Rebrandly to shorten the link and add your Facebook pixel in the link! What?!

Yes, that’s right—every link you shorten with Rebrandly gives you the ability to attach your own marketing pixels to the short link. And once you’ve added your scripts to Rebrandly, they are always there for easy access—just one click to add it to any short URL.

This feature was a total game-changer for me. It meant I can curate other people’s content and use that content to actually retarget my audience based on their interests.

Okay, so you clearly see I have a personal favorite when it comes to link-shortening service. So let’s move on to talk about custom short URLs and why you should be using them instead of generic ones.

Take it to the Next Level with Custom Short URLs

There are plenty of reasons you should ditch using generic short domains such as Bit.ly or any of the default link shorteners built into tools like Buffer or Hootsuite. But first, let’s clarify exactly what a custom short URL is.

A custom (or branded) short URL is when the domain on the shortened link has some sort of relevance to you or your brand. For example:

• Mashable uses on.mash.to
• New York Times uses nyti.ms
• Huffington Post uses huff.to
• Google uses its own goo.gl
• Warfare Plugins uses wfa.re

Having your own custom short URL has a more professional appeal to it. It also tells your audience that you’re slightly more sophisticated in your marketing.

Additionally, a study by theBitly team found that:

“branded short domains drive up to a 34% increase in CTR when compared to unbranded links.”

That means that just having a custom branded short URL you could be getting 34% more clicks on your shared links. That’s a big deal.

But there’s one last benefit to having your own branded short URL that I think is not to be overlooked.

A branded short link shows that you have personally shortened it. The shortened link was not just shortened anywhere by anyone because nobody holds the keys to your custom short domain but you.

One of the biggest problems with public URL shorteners is that they’ve been so widely abused.

Since anyone can shorten a link through Bitly or goo.gl (R.I.P.), for example, that means that they can easily disguise malicious links and people will unknowingly click-through to something they aren’t expecting.

This was such a widespread epidemic for a while that people have begun to mistrust any Bitly link.

With a custom short URL you’re lending your name (or brand name) and your seal of approval to whatever that link forwards to. It’s an added layer of trust that cannot be overlooked.

How to Set Up Custom Short URLs

Okay, Dustin, you’ve convinced me that I should totally be using a custom domain when shortening my links. So how do I do it?

I’m so glad you asked, dear reader.

There are three primary ways you can go about setting up your own branded link shortener.

The hardest way to set up custom short URLs

If you read about YOURLS above, then you know that by default you’re using your custom domain name to shorten links. However, that is a very technical route to go just for having a boost in branding.

But if you love fiddling with Open Source scripts, and know your way around your own server, get YOURLS installed and you’ll be all set.

The easier way to set up custom short URLs

If you use Bitly and want to continue using it because it integrates with all of your social media tools and apps—that’s totally understandable. They do offer the ability to use a custom short domain in your account.

The only limitation with using a custom domain with Bitly is that the domain must be 15 characters or less (including the dot).

First, you’ll need to purchase the short domain with a domain registrar. Setting it up to work with your Bitly account will then require you to make some changes to your domain’s DNS records on your domain registrar.

If that sounds a bit too technical for you already, don’t worry—my friend Dave Shrein has created a step-by-step tutorial to walk you through the process.

The easiest way to set up custom short URLs

If you want to completely avoid the complexity of buying a domain name and then managing the DNS records, Rebrandly makes it much easier.

As I stated previously, Rebrandly allows you to purchase short domains right within your account. That means once you buy the domain, it’s ready to be used immediately without any further configuration.

I currently have 4 custom domains registered through Rebrandly. It’s a bit of an addiction at this point.

I still use another custom domain through my Bitly account, however, because there are many apps I use which integrate with it and don’t integrate with Rebrandly (yet).

Downside to Using Short URLs

There are also some cons to using a custom branded short URL that I was recently made aware of.

There still exists a degree of trust issues that people have with any shortened link. Since the primary link is hidden, it’s very easy for spammers and scammers to get people to click on potentially shady links.

This means some people just won’t click on a shortened link. But if you’re a trustworthy person and people know that, then this shouldn’t be an issue.

Best Practices with Short URLs

Short URLs, whether branded or unbranded, are great for specific contexts. There are, however, certain instances where you do not want to use them. So here’s a short list of short URL best practices:

• Never in anchor text or hyperlinks. Or in other words, not on web pages or in blog posts. There is speculation that placing short URLs in HTML links can result in bad SEO mojo.
• Never use them on Pinterest for pins. Pinterest began removing pins with affiliate links and shortened URLs back in 2015. Best to just avoid using short URLs entirely on Pinterest.
• Never shorten an already shortened link. Not only is it redundant, but it can also get flagged as an error by web browsers for having too many redirects. If this happens, the link will essentially be useless.

Most of these are just good sense. A shortened link’s primary purpose is to improve the user experience. If you’re looking at using a shortened link for an instance where that purpose doesn’t apply, you probably don’t need to shorten it.

Final Thoughts

Using short URLs on social media can help your messages have more visual appeal, higher click-throughs, and give you extra insight into the effectiveness of the content you’re sharing.

To me, the positives far outweigh the potential negatives. As a professional in the world of content marketing and social media, I need to know what’s working and what’s not working so I can teach and apply that insight to my clients and customers.

So are you using short URLs in your social posts? What URL shortener are you using? Share your thoughts in the comments by clicking here.

Looking for the latest social media statistics? Want to know which social media networks and apps are the most popular in 2024?

Whether you’re building a presentation, a pitch, or you’re just plain curious, I’ve done my best to search the entire internet for all the juicy social media statistics you could possibly need.

All in one place, always updated so that you know exactly where to go to find the latest and greatest stats about popular social media platforms.

Based on the findings, I’ve also ranked each network (1-10) according to the active user base and usage data.

You can use this information to help guide your marketing efforts, determine which social channels to focus on, and inform your social media strategy.

Bonus: Grab the full infographic at the bottom of this post to share on your site!

To make it super easy for you here’s a convenient Table of Contents so that you can quickly navigate to the stats that you’re looking for:

• Facebook statistics
• YouTube statistics
• WhatsApp statistics
• Instagram statistics
• Reddit statistics
• Twitter statistics
• Snapchat statistics
• LinkedIn statistics
• Pinterest statistics
• Tumblr statistics
• Google+ statistics
• Periscope statistics

If you find anything in this article that is outdated or inaccurate and you can provide a credible source, please use the comments section to let me know!

Now, without further ado, lets get into it!

Facebook Statistics

Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg and launched in 2004. During creation, Facebook was only limited to Harvard students but was later available to everyone above 13 years old as long as you had a valid email address.

Now, after 15 years of existence, Facebook has become, by far, the largest social network in the world.

It has also become the most important social media site for marketers despite declining organic reach. Facebook marketing takes up a significant amount of digital ad spend in 2024.

And when it comes to social media statistics, Facebook tends to be the standard that all other networks are now compared to.

With that said, here are some of the most current Facebook statistics:

• As of June 2019, Facebook reports an estimated 2.4 billion Monthly Active Users.
• Facebook also says it has 1.6 billion Daily Active Users.
• 88% of Facebook’s user activity is from a mobile device.
• The average amount of time a users spends on Facebook every day is 58 minutes.
• There are over 300 million photos uploaded to Facebook every day.
• On average, 5 Facebook accounts are created every second.
• Approximately 30% of Facebook users are aged between 25 and 34 years.
• Facebook video is still in high demand with approximately 8 billion video views per day.

Most of these stats I found while reading through Facebook’s quarterly reports. I’m also constantly keeping my eye on the Facebook Newsroom for any breaking news and statistics announcements.

It’s worth noting that I could have added Facebook Messenger to this list, but due to the fact that most users still believe the two platforms to be the same, I decided to leave it out.

YouTube Statistics

YouTube was created by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley and Jawed Karim (former PayPal employees) in 2005. It’s considered the 3rd most popular website worldwide.

As far as social networks go, it’s ranked number two.

After 14 years of existence, here’s a look a some mind-blowing YouTube statistics:

• Currently YouTube has more than 1.9 billion logged-in visits every month.
• 149 million people login to YouTube daily.
• The average duration of a YouTube visit is 40 minutes.
• Viewers are spending an average of 1 hour per day watching YouTube videos.
• On average, 300 hours of video are uploaded every minute on YouTube.
• There are over 5 billion video views each day.

Many of these stats came straight from either the YouTube Blog or their Press page.

WhatsApp Statistics

WhatsApp is an instant messaging application for smartphones that comes with an end to end encryption. It was founded by Jan Koum and Brian Acton in 2009 and later bought by Facebook in 2014.

While some may mistakenly leave it out of the social media statistics studies, it’s absolutely one of the social networking titans, IMO.

In the 10 years since its inception it has achieved the following stats:

• WhatsApp is estimated to have approximately 1.5 billion monthly active users.
• There are now over 1 billion daily active users on WhatsApp.
• On average, 1 million people register on WhatsApp daily.
• Approximately 60 billion texts daily are sent.

Since WhatsApp doesn’t divulge any statistical data publicly (that I could find), all of these stats were found through third-party research.

Instagram Statistics

Instagram was created Mike Krieger and Kevin Systrom in 2010. It was mainly meant to enable sharing of pictures and videos, both publicly and privately. It had been since acquired by Facebook in 2012.

After 9 years of its existence, take a look at some of these fascinating Instagram statistics:

• Instagram has over 1 billion monthly active users.
• There are more than 600 million daily active users.
• There are now 500 million daily Stories users.
• Since its creation, more than 40 billion photos have been shared.
• On average, 95 million photos are uploaded daily on Instagram.
• There are approximately 4.2 billion likes per day.
• Most Instagram users are between 18 to 29 years of age with 32% of Instagram users being college students.

Some of these statistics were found on the Instagram Press page while others were found through third-party demographic research.

Bonus: Are you creating Instagram content? Make sure you grab my free Instagram Image Templates.

Twitter Statistics

Twitter was founded by Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone and Evan Williams in March of 2006. It was an experiment that quickly became a messaging addiction for many.

It’s one of my personal favorite social networks. And, if you know how to use Twitter right, it can be a big contributor to your social media success.

What started as a simple way to post status updates via text message has become one of the most popular go-to sources for what’s happening in the world in real time. In Twitter’s own words:

Twitter is what’s happening in the world and what people are talking about right now.

In its 13 years of existence, here are some of the noteworthy Twitter statistics:

• Nowadays Twitter has more than 330 million monthly active users.
• There are 134 million daily active users or at least that’s how many “monetizable” daily active users (mDAU) according to Twitter.
• Of their monthly active users, 68 million MAU are form the United States.
• The number of mDAU from the US is 26 million.
• Close to 460,000 new twitter accounts are registered every day.
• Twitter users are posting 140 million tweets daily which adds up to a billion tweets in a week.
• Each twitter user has on average 208 followers.
• 550 million accounts are reported to have at least sent a tweet.

I have dug through countless (and insanely boring) earnings reports to find these stats. Most recently the Twitter Q1 2019 Earnings Report was what informed most of the above data.

Now, even though Twitter is actually tied (so far as we know) with Reddit for Monthly Active Users, I’ve decided that Twitter should take the higher spot on the list because of mainstream adoption. I’d love to see some Daily Active User stats for Reddit though to see if they pull past Twitter.

Reddit Statistics

Reddit is a discussion and web content rating website. It was founded by Alexis Ohanian and Steve Huffman from the University of Virginia in 2005.

And while it isn’t receiving anywhere near as much press buzz, it is a thriving and vibrant community of people. Many of them total trolls, but hey, trolls are people too.

It’s also been known to completely tank websites by sending enormous, and unsustainable amounts of web traffic when things hit the front page. So, be sure to use it for your own blog posts with caution.

In the 14 years it’s been around, it has accomplished the following:

• Reddit has approximately 330 million monthly active users.
• It’s estimated that Reddit gets over 14 billion views per month.
• There have been more than 853,000 subreddits.
• It has more than 138,000 active communities.
• On average, there are 25 million votes on Reddit daily.
• The average time length of reddit visit is 13 minutes.

A lot of these statistics can be found if you search through their advertiser or press pages.

LinkedIn Statistics

LinkedIn is a professional networking service that was founded in 2002 but later launched in 2003.

It is officially the oldest social network on this list.

And although it is the oldest, it’s definitely struggled to grow its user base over the years. This is mostly due to the professional nature of the network.

It started as a place to simply keep your resume updated and didn’t really turn into a full-on social network until Facebook was well into its prime.

Since launching 16 years ago, it can boast the following user stats:

• LinkedIn has over 560 million registered users.
• It is estimated that LinkedIn has approximately 303 million monthly active users.
• 5.3 million new accounts per month are created on LinkedIn.
• There are over 30 million company pages.
• The average visit duration is about 10 minutes.
• Of all the users, 57% are male whereas 43% of the users are females.

LinkedIn has always been a bit cryptic in releasing usage statistics, but a few of the above points can be found on their About page.

Snapchat Statistics

Snapchat is a multimedia mobile application which was created by Bobby Murphy, Evan Spiegel and Reggie Brown in 2011.

It started as a private messaging app that gave users the ability to create “snaps” or messages that would self-destruct (be automatically deleted) after being viewed. Unlike all the other social media apps and networks in which you had to manually delete posts you’ve shared.

For many, this was empowering because they didn’t have to worry about sending something that they’d regret years down the road.

For others, it just seemed like a breeding ground for sexting and “unscrupulous” behavior that people wanted to hide.

When Snap, Inc. became a publicly traded company, it decided to evolve into calling itself a “camera company.” Very few people understand that decision.

In that short 8 years, here’s what the mobile messaging app has accomplished by way of user stats:

• Snapchat has approximately 301 million monthly active users.
• Snapchat also reports 109 million daily active users (a downward trend).
• Of those daily active users, 77 million are from the United States.
• 60% of these snapchat users are aged between 18 and 34 years.
• Snapchat is competing closely with its rival, Facebook, by reporting more than 10 billion video views daily.
• Approximately 3 billion snaps are created every day.
• Snapchat users aged 25 years and above spent an average of 20 minutes on snapchat daily while those below 25 years spent on average 30 minutes.
• It’s estimated that it would take you more than 950 years to watch all snaps made in a day.

Most of the data was found digging through Snap Inc. quarterly earnings reports. I wouldn’t recommend it–unless you’re literally read everything else there is to be read on the internet first.

Pinterest Statistics

Pinterest is a mobile application that enables you to find information on the World Wide Web. It was founded by Evan Sharp, Ben Silbermann and Paul Sciarra in 2010.

And Pinterest will be the first to tell you that it is not a social media platform. However, 99% of the people you talk to about with will consider it one. Sorry, Pinterest.

It took some time for Pinterest to get on the social media marketing map, but it eventually showed itself to be a very powerful traffic driver.

And although it took Peg Fitzpatrick a couple years to get me on Pinterest, once I finally took her advice, I was a firm believer in the power of the platform. While it may not have the highest number of active users, the website traffic potential is through the roof.

While it developed a strong reputation for being mostly used by women, men have begun flocking to the network, probably thanks to Jeff Sieh at Manly Pinterest Tips.

In its 9 years, it has achieved the following milestones:

• Pinterest has 291 million monthly active users.
• 70 million of it’s active users are from the United States.
• The average Pinterest user visit lasts 14 minutes.
• The total number of Pinterest pins is more than 175 billion.
• The total number of Pinterest boards are approximately 1 billion.
• In a day, Pinterest is visited by 2 million users who save shopping pins on their boards.

Some of these stats were found on the official Pinterest Blog while others had to be sourced through third-party data studies. And now since Pinterest is a publicly traded company, they also have quarterly earnings reports that anyone can view.

Tumblr Statistics

This is a micro-blogging and social networking website which was launched in 2007 by David Carp.

You won’t typically see Tumblr included in social media statistics because many people may think of it as a “blogging” platform. However, I believe it absolutely fits into the realm of social networks and should be counted among the top social media sites.

It’s gone through a lot of evolutions, acquisitions, and changes, but it has stuck around for a long time. It’s also developed a unique culture of users.

In its 12 years, it has accomplished the following user milestones:

• Tumblr has a total of over 452 million blogs.
• There are approximately 371 million monthly visits.
• Tumblr has more than 166 billion published posts.
• There are approximately 7.2 million new blogs created each month.
• Approximately 46% of Tumblr visitors are aged between 18 and 34 years.
• Of all the visitors, 52% are male and 48% female.

Of all the listed sites, Tumblr seems to be the most transparent as this data was pretty easy to get.

Bonus Reading: Check out my list of the best Social Media Tools for professional social media marketers.

Other Social Networks

This section contains social networks that were previously a part of the primary list. I wanted to preserve these for historical purposes even though they no longer are included in the primary list.

Google+ Statistics

Google plus is a social network owned by Google. It was launched in 2011 and was meant to be a social layer across all of Google’s products. The purpose and objective of the social network has changed a lot over the years, and in early 2019 has been officially sunset.

In its eight years of existence it had accomplished some interesting milestones:

• At its high-point, there were approximately 395 million monthly active users on Google+.
• Google+ was estimated to have over 2 billion registered users world-wide.
• 28% of Google plus users were aged between 15 and 34 years.
• United States alone made up 55% of all the users.
• 73.7% of the users were male while 26.3% were female.
• It is estimated that on average, a Google+ user will spent 3 minutes and 46 seconds per visit.

Some of this info was gained through reading the official Google Blog (before they got rid of the Google+ blog) as well as many other third-party research and data studies.

Unfortunately, it seems Google was in no way interested in the social media statistics game and has kept much of its data private.

Periscope Statistics

Periscope is a live video streaming app that was created by Joe Bernstein and Kayvon Beykpour and before even launching was bought by Twitter in 2015.

It quickly dwarfed its predecessor, Meerkat, and became very popular among live-streaming apps. I even tried it for a while and came up with a handful of Periscope pro tips that you might want to check out.

In its short 3 years after launch Periscope has accomplished the following milestones:

• There are over 9.3 million live streams monthly on Periscope.
• Periscope has over 10 million registered users.
• Daily active users are approximated to be 1.9 million.
• The number of active users on Periscope using android is 1.2 million.
• There have been 200 million broadcasts on periscope to date.
• On average, 350,000 hours of videos are streamed every day.

Twitter doesn’t reveal many of Periscope’s usage stats, but you can dig through their quarterly reports and get some interesting info.

Social Media Statistics Infographic

What’s that you say? You wish there were a giant infographic that you could share out to your social networks and embed on your own blogs?

Well, didn’t I just think of everything when I created the following for you?

If you’d like to embed this infographic on your own website, just copy the code below:

<a href="https://dustinstout.com/social-media-statistics/" target="_blank"><img src="https://dustinstout.com/free-resources/social-media-statistics-infographic.jpg" alt="Social Media Statistics 2018 Infographic" /></a><br /><em>Image courtesy of <a href="https://dustinstout.com" target="_blank">Dustin Stout</a></em>

Final Thoughts On Social Media Statistics

It’s taken me a long time to track down these social media stats. I’ve spent countless hours trolling through quarterly earnings reports, advertizer informational documents, platform about pages, and every official documented record of stats I could.

However, some networks just don’t care to give any statistics out anymore. So I turned to other third-party data sources. If you find anything listed above to be a bit off, do let me know.

But I wanted to take a moment here and say one very important thing:

It doesn’t really matter how many users any social network has.

You know what really matters?

How many people are you able connect with in a relevant way?

If there are 2.4 billion people are active on Facebook, but none of them have any interest in the stories you’re telling (or you can’t reach them)— there is zero value in that network.

If there are 300 people using MySpace and every single one of them are interested in your story— it’s suddenly more valuable than Facebook.

I’m just using these as extreme examples, and, of course, they’re not accurate. There’s no way Myspace has 300 users.

The point is this— don’t get caught up in the “who has the most active users” game. It’s even more meaningless than your follower count. Your social media presence is about serving your target audience, not everyone in the world.

Bonus reading: Don’t just “boost” your social media engagement, learn how to scale it. That’s where the real power of social media channels and influencer marketing lives.

If there’s anything I’ve learned from working with a diverse set of clients, it’s this— target market trumps mass market.

So when you’re considering putting time, energy and resources into your social media marketing don’t get caught up in the big numbers. Do your market research and know which networks your target market is actively engaging on.

If you need help deciding where your time and effort is best spent on social media, you can always drop me a line.

And also, if you have any interesting social media statistics you’d like to add, just throw them in the comments along with your source and I’ll take a look at adding them.

Feature image courtesy of SFIO CRACHO via Shutterstock.

If you’re a social media professional or aspiring to be one in any way, Social Media Marketing World is the event you need to be at.

What do you get when you cram 7,000 social media professionals into the San Diego Convention center for 3 days? Why, Social Media Marketing World of course!

Without a doubt this is the biggest live event in the social media world. With the biggest names in the business in attendance.

Important: Get your ticket now and save on your ticket price. Skip to the end to grab your ticket now, before it’s too late!

In the words of Guy Kawasaki,

If you’re in the social media business, you’d be an idiot not to come.

I couldn’t have said it better.

But if Guy’s commentary isn’t enough, I’m going to give you my inside scoop, having gone two years in a row, on why you need to be at this conference.

To date, SMMW has always been the most fun conference I go to every single year.

I want to give you my insider look at why I believe this is the must-attend social media marketing event of the year.

Thought Leadership

If you follow any great social media thought leaders, odds are you will find them at the conference. Some of the speakers include:

And that’s only a fraction of the amazing lineup of speakers.

It draws the greatest minds in the industry— between whom you’ll learn more than you’ll ever need to be successful online.

Oh, and did I mention… I’ll be there as a track leader!

That should be reason enough to go, right? Okay, maybe not– so keep reading.

Meet Your Social Media Marketing Heroes

Let me tell you the story of my first ever Social Media Marketing World. I went there with the sole purpose of seeing the people I look up to in the social media world, live, in person.

I didn’t expect to actually meet them, shake their hands and have actual conversations with them. But that’s exactly what happens.

Life-changing conversations.

You see, the folks at Social Media Examiner have been extremely intentional to encourage the speakers to be amongst the crowd, networking and having conversations. More on the networking in the next section.

Because of this, I’ve been able to get to know, on a personal level, some of the folks I have looked up to for years.

I got to spend time with Chris Brogan who has mentored me from afar (whether he knew it or not) through his blog posts and a handful of back-and-forth emails.

Thanks to the amazing Peg Fitzpatrick I was able to go to dinner with none other than Jay Baer, who gave me some of the best speaking advice I’d ever gotten.

Next time, I’ll make sure I tell Jay that I’m taking a photo.

But to make that dinner overwhelmingly special to me, joining us also was:

Yep, that’s right. Guy Kawa-freaking-saki.

Also there that night was Anne Handley (who also gave me great speaking advice), Michael Stelzner (founder of SMMW), Carlos Gill, Mari Smith and a boatload of other influencers.

All because of the connections I made and the relationships I built at this conference.

Pictured with me above is Rebekah Radice, Brian Fanzo, and (again) Peg Fitzpatrick. We still haven’t figured out who the photo-bomber throwing the peace sign was.

So, for me, the most compelling reason to go to Social Media Marketing World year after year has been to be amongst, and meet your heroes.

Put the Networking Back In Social Networking

Nobody does networking events as well as Social Media Examiner. At least, nobody that I’ve ever seen. And I’ve been to a lot of conferences.

The planning team has put an immense amount of thought and intentionality behind the networking side of the conference. If you walk away without making some valuable connections— you must have slept through it.

The relationships I have been able to cultivate through the power of this event have been second to none.

You have to be willing to network though. Understand that people come to this event to network with other business professionals. And you know the tickets aren’t cheap, so the people here are serious and don’t need to be convinced about the value of social media and digital marketing.

So. Much. Fun.

Take the business out of Social Media Marketing World and you have:

• A party on the U.S.S. Midway
• A themed party on the second night (details to come soon)
• Most likely a Karaoke jam at some point
• Did I mention it’s in San Diego?

If you like to work hard and play hard, you will have your fill of both— and then some!

All Access, All Recorded, All for You

You couldn’t possibly be at all 100+ sessions happening over the course of the 3-day conference. Luckily, you don’t need to be since they are all recorded.

As an attendee, you get full access to every single recording for up to a year after the event.

So Much Content for Your Audience

Take it from me— turning your experience at the conference into content for your audience can be pure gold.

Some of my SMMW notes, for two years, have been some of the most visited (and revisited) content on the site. Can you say evergreen?

Not to mention it’s also highly repurposable content as well. You can create quote graphics, recap videos, and continue to recycle that content in other posts as well.

Some people would gladly pay a much higher premium for this kind of content creation. And at Social Media Marketing World, you’ll have more than you could ever possibly create.

Go to Social Media Marketing World

This event is 3 days of intensive networking, education, creative stimulation, and fun. There’s no reason not to go— especially if social media is any part of your professional career or business.

So be there. And make sure you tell me in the comments that you will be there— I want to meet you! Reserve your ticket!

So, who’s headed to Social Media Marketing World 2020 with me? You can leave a comment by clicking here.