Optimize Your Podcast Social Media: Exact Image Sizes That Boost Podcast Impact

This is Feed you'd Brand with hosts Tom Hazard and Tracy Hazzard.

Welcome back to Feed you'd Brand. I'm Tom Hazzard along with my co host, Tracy Hazzard. Today we're going to talk about our annual social media size guide, our podcast Social media size Guide. And for all you podcasters, I'm sure you're all on social media and you should be promoting your episodes on social media. And when you have guests, you should be.

With assets to share on social media to help promote the show that they're a guest on. But there's so many different platforms and they're always changing. The sizes of what you can post change all the time. You might find what you've been doing for years all of a sudden isn't optimized. And we're here to help you with that today, right, Tracy?

Well, yeah, I mean, I called it this year the 2025 podcast Social media size blueprint because that's what it's more. It's like this guide for how you're going to build your social that's a little bit different this year because you might not want to do it like everybody else does. A guide says this is you could take it or leave it. Right. This says I might not have a structurally sound house if I don't follow the blueprint. And that's kind of the message I want to get across this time. Because lot is changing in social media. There is a lot of technical changes happening, but there's a lot of algorithm changes.

You know, I didn't even realize I was calling it the social media size guide because that's what we've called it in years past. I was just sort is stuck on what we always do.

You're right. We usually just update the post, but this year I've done a little bit different. I actually put together. And so it's more than a size guide. It has all the sizes in it, has usable area in it, it has posting guide which used to be a separate thing. So they're embedded in it together. And I hope that today's podcast we're really going to talk about the trends of what's happening here in 2025. That may be reason why you need to make new templates, new something where you need the new sizes. Right? Because things are different.

They are different and they are always changing. You can't trust that what you've been doing is optimized. And for what's happening today. I mean, I was amazed even. And I'm Curious to see Tracy as you go through and share a few things with our listeners and viewers. And by the way, if you're listening to this as a podcast, you're really going to want to either go take a look at the video, which you can do in the blog@podcasters, you know.org or you can do it on YouTube because Tracy's going to share her screen and show some things. And this is really a lot of this is very visual. So. Or maybe you're listening to the podcast and when you stop driving or get to where you can get to a computer, you go and actually download the PDF yourself to see it. But Tracy, I was recently going through for a customer that we do done for you production for the video clip template. And our designer in our company had all these different areas of, you know, for a standard tall format video clip where you don't want to put anything really critical because it's going to be covered up by one thing or another that the platform does, depending on the platform you're posting on. So I mean, that's just one example of like, where is the real visible area? Where do you not want to put your captions? Where do you not want to put your logo or anything? If you're going to add anything, not just a video clip, but any types of graphics, context is important. Right. You've got to know what you should and shouldn't do. And that's a big part of what this blueprint is going to help you with.

Yeah, I mean, it is. And it's also, how do I say this? There's also a strategy that goes along with how you use this stuff and that's what I'm going to touch. So I'm actually not going to share my screen till we're partway through this because I want to focus on why you're going to change things. If you're going to change things. And then you take the guide out and you say, okay, this is what I need to change it to. Right. Like that's the model I want you, the approach I want everyone to take from what I'm going to talk about today. So I'm going to touch back to a couple of years ago where we had what you would call an omnichannel. People may have heard this, Omni meaning all channel.

Right.

Like you, your approach is the same across everything. And as you know, Twitter X user is not a Facebook user, it's not an Instagram user, is not a TikTok user. Right. Like they're not the same. Definitely not a LinkedIn user. Right. So that went by the wayside. And we next got into this highly customized. In probably the last two years, we've really been working towards this highly customized, platform focused model of everything, which means, like, everybody has a different size and everybody's making this more difficult than it needs to be. And you have to have a LinkedIn size and a Facebook size and a TikTok size and a YouTube size. And it just got to be really complicated. And that model of it wasn't being used properly by most people because they were more concentrating on all these technical aspects of having to keep up with the platform, that they weren't concentrating on making the style different, the messaging different. It just fell. And so what this year I have a whole different message for everybody and I see it as working. And a couple of things have gone on. One is that we have a lot of people and I want you to realize that what's going into the trends that are shifting here is that we have a lot of people on a social media hiatus. They're taking a break from social. They're done with the pushy messages, they're done with a lot of the model of what's been going on. Then the second thing we have is we have an influx of AI content where there's no human beings in this. Everybody's content is actually starting to sound a lot of the same and it's starting to look the same. That's really dangerous. And that we can see as the influence of AI into marketing. And then we see people very confused about their future. Right. They don't know what's going to happen in the economy. They don't know what's going to happen in their business. They don't know what to do next. And that confusion is taking away a clarity of message. So that's why I'm focusing all of you onto my three new principles for 2025 that I've already been doing. So, like, we've already been doing it ourselves, which is something that I like to do, which is why we took three extra months to get this guide out to you. I wanted to make sure it would work. I didn't want to give you advice and I felt like you needed more than me just updating the sizes this year. And I didn't want to give you advice that I wasn't sure was going to play. Now, it's not for everybody. Remember that. My advice isn't for those who have hundreds of thousands of followers. My advice for those who are building your following. Those of you who are starting at the ground up, those of you who have a podcast and you've been trying to nurture that audience and get it to grow at a standard again at a. At a good pace, right? That's what my focus is. If you have millions of followers and you've been plugging away and you've monetized all your channels, this advice is not for you. This advice is for the growth social media platform, for the growth user. So here's my three things, Tom. Keep it simple, keep it human, and I'm going to throw in humane. Like, use that word in two ways, right? Keep it unfiltered. I'm sick of the word authentic. I'm sick of the word organic. Those are lies. They are absolute lies out in the space. And we know that because sponsors, advertisers are looking for authenticity. Social media influencers, and they define that as someone who's capable of pretending that they're not selling something, but they really are. So it's a lie. So I don't want to use that word anymore. Instead, I'm calling it unfiltered. Some people are calling it raw. But I think, look, I'm big salmon sashimi fan, right? Raw salmon is great. Raw beef, not so much. So I want to make sure that you're in the right industry where you can be raw.

You're making me hungry now, Tracy.

Sorry, we need some sushi now. So keep it simple, keep it human, and keep it unfiltered. And the reason I want you focused on those things is because I want you focused on being relatable. That's the part of unfiltered or raw. If you're relatable in it, it's working.

I need to believe that you know what I'm going through. I need to believe that you have my best interest at heart. I need to believe that you're going to be the difference maker in my life.

Those things only come when you're relatable. They don't come when you stand on your soapbox and you rant at everybody. They don't come when. When you expose everything you have. And now they feel like you're not the guide, but at least they're not alone. That's not maybe who you are. The next thing is that I want you to focus on is being engaging. So if we spend less time agonizing over all this size stuff and how stuff is supposed to format and look, then we could spend more time on engagement. What I see you all doing out there is posting, but not commenting.

You're not spending time engaging with your users. You're not spending time engaging with your listeners. You're not spending time engaging with other people's content so that they'll engage back with yours. It's a reciprocal thing. If you're not willing to comment, then why should I comment to you? Just because you said, please comment.

Because you did the little dance and pointed to things, that's not a reason. You have to give me something back, and maybe you have to give me something first. So I want you spending more time on the platform, engaging in other people's stuff, so that you can get back what you're looking for in your own channel. I also want you to think about going experimenting. That's what I do every year for you. I do the experiments for you. And that means that sometimes you have to go off script. And I'm going to dare say off brand.

Oh, I completely agree with that statement. Off brand. People that are overly branded, and it has to be the same way everywhere don't do well on social media, right?

That's right. It's getting lower and lower and lower. And you'll see that in what we're doing, especially in video clips. The more branded, more templated, more framing, more logos you have on it, the worse it does. And it's not just an algorithm problem, it's a human reaction to it as well. The minute I see that, I think you're filtering, you're presenting a front, you're influencing me, but not in a real way, not in a relatable way. So that's what we want to take out. And you know what? That goes back to keep it simple, Tom, because. Right. If we put less templates on stuff, it's less work.

I agree. You know, for all you podcasters out there who have been taking the time to create a unique image for every episode, that's fantastic. Good for you. And if you've been doing it in a more templated way, and if you've sometimes lamented or, you know, complained to yourself that, oh, this is taking so long for me to do this every episode, you know, and you're dealing with the grind and it's maybe getting in the way of you recording more episodes, well, fortunately for you, the things that Tracy's going to share and what we're suggesting is actually easier to do, so it should make your work that you're having to do to put your best foot forward out there for each episode a little easier. Right.

Right. So remember that we still. So you're saying, well, Tracy, if we can keep it simple, we're going to keep it unfiltered, we're going to keep it human. Then why do I even need to create anything? Why can't I just, like, pop it up there, say whatever I want, and just make it simp? And there are three reasons for that. One, you have to play with the algorithms. Like, the algorithms have a game to it. You've got to make sure you size it right, You've got to make sure you follow the rules of the algorithm or you just won't be seen no matter what you post. So we have to play that game. But also, I just want to be clear. Uncurated or raw doesn't mean unprofessional, right? So we still need to make sure our stuff doesn't look like junk, right? We need to make sure it looks. It looks good, it's clear. And that's the third thing, the clarity. So we don't want stuff getting distorted or miscropped and like, just like, messed up to the point that our message isn't coming across, our humanness isn't coming across. It just. It looks like a mistake. We don't want that, right? It needs to be intentional. And so we do have to understand our sizes, understand the rules, and just play within that, but we don't have to overcomplicate it from there. So with that in mind, I'm going to go into this little frame of mind where I am saying kind of that omnichannel effect of whenever we can get away with it, let's make a size and style of something that works across all channels. Because here's the thing. I maybe don't resonate with really well with TikTok users. Maybe I'm too old, I don't get them, right? Maybe that's the thing, right? And that's going to come across. But that doesn't mean that those TikTok users can't use my short bites of advice, my hard truth that I tell everyone here, right? So if I make a clip for YouTube, why shouldn't I use it on TikTok? Why shouldn't I move it to TikTok and just use it like it is, as long as it's sized right and it fits right, and it doesn't look stupid when I put it there, right? Just put it there. Is it going to resonate with everyone? No, but I didn't work that hard at it. I've repurposed something so I'm always thinking about the platforms that I, I. Maybe it's not my primary but I want to reuse stuff and what I don't want to do is not be posting. I don't. I. We always call it. It's a joke around here because we're old. That Live and Kicking, which is an in excess song that we want to be. Isn't it in excess? Do you look confused? I think it's in excess.

I think Simple Minds.

Simple Minds.

I think Simple Minds. The same people that do Don't Forget about Me.

Yeah. Simple Minds.

The Breakfast Club.

Yeah. And I just read about them. They're a really cool band from Ireland. I think so. And they had just a cool story about writing that, writing that Simple Mind song, the Don't Forget about Me. Anyway, I'll link that in the blog post for this episode. I will find that article because it's really interesting. Anyway, side note, alive and kicking. Alive and posting. Right. I don't spend a ton of time in In X. I rarely even open up the app but I post to it every single day. But I'm reusing something that I'm posting elsewhere that I usually am posting on threads where I have much more connection and much more communication. So this is where decide where you are going to spend your engagement time so that you can focus on that because you know it better, you engage better, the audience is a better match for you. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't be post because if somebody's looking for how to podcast or podcasting tips, I want them to find us and so repurposing over in those places. But that's where we're going to keep it simple. We're really going to design for the primary channel, which is the exact rules we give everyone here. Tom. Right. Don't we tell them start with one. Start with one channel. Make it simple. If you've not started, start with one channel.

Sure. You really can't do a very good job of being everywhere on every platform in the ideal way each platform would prefer or recommend. I mean if you did, you'd be a professional full time social media manager, either for yourself or for another company. Because it would. There are so many platforms to be everywhere. It takes a lot of work. So what are the most important ones where you engage the most? Start there and then. All right, like Tracy's saying, with the minimum of effort can you also be on a few other platforms and maybe you won't engage as much, but at least you're putting your content out there to be found. And maybe you can be on half a dozen platforms, you know, depending on what you're doing and how you do it. But, yeah, I think what you're suggesting, Tracy, is repurpose as much as you can. It doesn't necessarily have to be perfect on those secondary or tertiary platforms that you're not going to engage in as much. Right, right.

And especially if you can use what we've put into the guide to know that that video clip is sized this way, it's going to work across three channels or it's going to work across five channels. And this year, for the first time, Tom, do you know what we added?

What did we add?

Blue sky and Tumblr and Snapchat and we added tons of platforms for you.

Really?

Yep, we did. We expanded it, which is why it took along. So here we go. Ta da. I'm going to keep this up in this way so that I can jump around for us and see the thumbnails. But this will be linked in the blog post for this episode. And if you're joining us live on Zoom, you all get it first, because the blog post for this episode will probably be two weeks out from the time that this is airing. But those of you who are on Zoom with us live, we are going to give you the copy of it first. There's a couple of changes that are still coming that didn't come through today, so that it might not get posted till the one that's coming in two weeks. Will might be a slightly different version than what you see here, but here, 2025 social media size blueprint, the exact image sizes that boost podcast impact. Because here's what you don't understand about the algorithm. If you get it wrong, they won't boost it. They're not going to share it out for you. They're going to downgrade it. So you need to know that. So we call this the safe zone, right? Where you also have to remember not just the actual size of something, but what's going to show and what's not going to show. And you see this most predominantly, Tom, in your banner areas, right? Like at the top of your channel, like when you try to. Like this is the Emerging Managers podcast, which launches next week, and it is getting a new YouTube channel, getting a new website, getting a new everything, right? So everything has to be replaced. And if we don't make sure that it's viewable on all devices, we get this weird little cutoff where we don't know what the Words are. Or we cut off our brand logo and we don't know what our brand is or our company is or the website is. Right? So we have to pay attention to the Safe zone on everything we do. And whenever possible, we give it to you. Here, these are the banners which are a little bit different. They're one time done for you. Like you. Well, not one time because you can change them all the time if you wanted to, but you put them up and you're done. They're not the weekly posts or the daily posts. That's not what these are. These are the banners at the top of your channel. Typically, your regular users and your regular followers don't see these. This is for somebody new coming to your platform, coming to your LinkedIn page, coming to your Facebook group or your Facebook page for your company, your YouTube channel. That's what these are. So we call this sometimes the safe zone usable area. Just want to throw that out there. Most channels have a view of it. When you load something in. This is what YouTube actually shows you. They show you that it looks like that. However, designing to it is extremely difficult. And I have to say that as much as I love Canva and all the other tools, they don't actually give you safe area. You have to know it, you have to figure it out. And so very typically, and it's not on here because we're just talking about it, but very typically, and I'm going to jump down to one that has a safe zone. You'll see we give you the pixels.

Of the Safe zone. This is some of the things that I find very important and fascinating. And the nice thing about this. And again, if you're listening to the podcast, you definitely want to go get the blueprint and look at it even while listening to some of this, or go watch the video because Tracy's sharing your screen right now. It shows you the safe zone. But you also see context of why. Because you see on YouTube, for instance, for YouTube shorts, there's the thumbs up button, the thumbs down button, the comment button, you know, and then there's the title and little bit of description about the short video. And if you put any of your stuff outside of that safe zone, it's just going to be obstructed view. It's kind of like, you know, you go to a baseball stadium and you get the cheap seats and you got this huge vertical column that's, you know, right in the middle of the field. And you paid a cheaper price for that seat because you can't see Everything. Well, I don't recommend you do that here. There's. Especially if it's your primary platform, understand where the safe zone is and then make your content with that in mind.

Absolutely. So I'm just gonna quickly I am giving you the round profile size. It's 800 by 800, remember. But remember there's that circle, right. And it cuts off things in the corners. So be careful where you put things. I also giving you make sure your files type jpeg, gif, bitmap, png. Here is the thing. If you are having trouble with the speed of your site, let's say running, you should not be using png, you should be using jpeg. So thinking about the file format depends on the platform, which ones work best, where and when. They say suggested jpeg, make it jpeg. If they say suggested png, make it png. Do what they list as the first one. It has an optimized result.

Now Tracy, I have a question about this. Sort of from a perspective of hopefully our listeners and viewers, they give a size recommendation like you're giving us the pixel sizes, are they giving a file size like in megabytes or kilobytes, are they, are they giving sometimes like and.

Here'S like this thing is, look, you're going to drop your profile photo and they're recommending an 800 by 800 and there is a megabyte limit to it as well. But Most often with 800 by 800 you won't exceed that. But it's going to re render that down to 98 by 98. So you want to get it at the max level of whatever that is and because it will compress it in and of itself because the social media channel has speed at that's the core basic for them.

Oh, I agree with that. I think if they're giving you the pixel size limit, you want to make your image that exact pixel size. But I know, I mean I've experienced it myself all four or five methoughton say this again, all file formats are not equal and you can save a PNG and it is a much larger file size than a jpeg. A jpeg. And JPEG is unusual because you can and from certain programs anyway you can export different quality levels like high, medium and low, but it's still that pixel size. There's other aspects to JPEGs and you can, I found with JPEGs you can get a very efficient meaning a low file size image with the same resolution. So make sure you know if you're creating your own images and exporting them. You're mindful of this because we see in podcasting, especially show cover arts, being many megabytes, like three, four megabytes in size, which is a lot. And podcast RSS feeds, for example, are not very. They don't work as well when you have very large images. So anyway, there are other contexts and I think on social, being efficient is important too.

Yeah. So a couple new things I want to point out, Tom, here. On the YouTube side of things, it's like, look, we've written here that YouTube recommends that videos intended for sale rental have a higher pixel count. This is if you are optimizing for YouTube TV and it is a focus for YouTube. So if you've got a premium channel or anything like that, then you want to, or you plan to in the future, you want to increase your resolution. You are allowed to insert something that at a higher pixel count, then it actually displays that this is the low side of it, 1280 by 720. It's typically what almost all of us do because the file size is reasonable and so we can all handle it at that. But if you have intentions of a bigger, more professional YouTube future, make them at the higher resolution because there's a lot of space on YouTube TV right now.

So these sizes, just in case any of you are wondering, the 128720 size, you may have, you know, heard of different kinds of HD video. There's hd. The first level of HD that came out, which I can't believe was now more than 20 years ago. It's like 23 or 24 years ago was 720p, I think they used to call it. And then there's 720i. There's a couple of distinctions. So this 1280 by 720, 720. Now notice they're talking about the vertical height of a landscape orientation video. Then the 1920 by 1080 is the 1080 HD. It's your higher, more, more typical HD what people get. And it's interesting, these YouTube shorts takes that same size and turns it 90 degrees right.

So the shorts are the opposite of that and they have their own aspect ratio that they're working from. They're actually 900. The safe zone is 900 by 1370. So it's a little bit different in like the overall space. So but it's really taking that HD size and flipping it well.

And just to be clear that make sure. I want to make sure all of our listeners and viewers understand this. The safe zone is not the size of Your video that you're making. If a video that size, it's going to stretch it to fill the. Either the width or the height, whichever it can fill first. And you'll end up with, you know, black bars either above and below or side to side. You still want to make the full video size. It's just the important stuff. And if you're putting in captions or anything else, you want to keep that within the safe zone.

Absolutely. So these are. YouTube is important. And the reason I put it first is because we typically want that higher resolution, that better file. Everything works better on YouTube. Usually. Typically works everywhere else, because usually that's what happens with the big brands. They load on YouTube first and then they load everywhere else. So thinking about that, we put a YouTube first model in the way that we built this guide as well. From there, you're going to be able to get most of the sizes that you need everywhere else. There might be a few exceptions, and we'll talk about them as we go forward here. I want to make it clear that there's a few tips mixed in here. Tips like the banner. Think of the banner like a billboard. When you have a banner at the top of your channel, it's a billboard. Here's what I also want you to think about is that things should not be redundant. I do not want. You already have, like, look, we have the word podcasters United here. So we have our slogan United we pod on the banner. We have podcasters United, but we're showing what the logo looks like. We didn't write the words. And we're giving you podcasting tips for serious podcasters. And we're telling you what's important. Live Experts, Wednesday at noon Pacific time. Right? So we're giving you the information, we're treating it like a message space because remember, this is for people who are new to you who don't know you yet. So we don't want to waste the space, the whole space we have writing things redundantly. This is the message Tom and I have been giving you on the podcast side. Stop writing the word podcast on your cover art because they're in the podcast app when they see it now, that doesn't mean you don't write the word podcast when you share it on social, but you don't do it in the podcast app. It's a waste of time. You also probably don't need your host name on it because your host name is right next to it when it's shown everywhere in the podcast app. So this is the same kind of message we're talking about is use your space to its fullest. Now here's one that's really pretty different and I want you to think about this. The profile photos on LinkedIn are square, they're not round. You can be. You could use your cover art just like I do here. Your cover photo while you're looking at it here on the laptop, it has like the big banner, but remember, most often it's looked mobile and it has its own usable area that, that you have to pay attention to and be careful of. There's difference between a company page and a profile page and the sizes are slightly, often different from this. It gets complicated. Over on LinkedIn, they have not done a really good job of synergizing across all of the different places. So. And partially because they don't want you to use the same image everywhere. So they're trying to actually help you push you a little bit. So now here, square posts and landscape posts and portrait posts all work differently. You have a better. On LinkedIn, square posts and landscape posts actually look better because LinkedIn wants it designed so that the messaging on the top has a space where when you make a vertical, a portrait post, right, like you do on reels or like you do for Instagram stories, or like you, you know, where you're filling up your whole phone space in their model, the post comes at the top and so it pushes it down so you actually get half of it cut off. Doesn't happen on any other because like an Instagram, the post will be first and the any content will be below it, right? And you'd have to scroll to get to that content or expand. Same thing in YouTube shorts, right? You have to expand to get to the post part of it or go out to the side if you're on your computer. But LinkedIn's not like that. It's the opposite of that. It's encouraging the messaging, the post part of it. And so because of that, I still recommend you think about having squares. But more importantly for you podcasters out there, use your landscapes, use what you use on your blog. Those are ideal for the way that things work in LinkedIn. The landscape view is ideal, fills the space really nice. What LinkedIn does is stick this like blurry bar out to the side whenever you put a vertical in or create blank colored space out to the side. So it's actually not, it's not going to cut stuff off, it'll show it, but it's shrinking it and making it smaller so it's not in your best interest to post those sizes first. If you have other options. If you don't have Other options and LinkedIn is not your primary format, not your primary channel, then don't worry about it. Post what you got. They'll fix it for you and it won't look bad. Anything you want to say about that, Tom? Like I see you, you're like, no, no, no.

That makes perfect sense. I mean, but in that context on LinkedIn, if you made a square video, would it fill that whole space?

Yes, if you had a square one.

But you've got to then take the time to make a square version of your video.

Right. So how many times do we see our clients, they use like that story format. They've got like overly branded frame around everything. They put the rectangular a video in the middle of it. Now, do you know how small that is?

Incredibly small. And we've been encouraging and trying to move our clients away from that. I mean, ultimately it's their show and they can have it the way they want. But we've been trying to move people out of those more framed templated video clips and into something that is, like you said, the more authentic and what was the word?

Unfiltered. Not authentic.

Unfiltered. Unfiltered. There we go.

So this is a really good example of what the post looks like and you can see how the post space and how it fills the frame nicely at the bottom. If you use that's actually a video clip, but you could be sharing your full YouTube video. LinkedIn doesn't penalize you for using a YouTube link. They don't penalize you because they let you play it within. So it's not a, you know, it's not a jump out so that you can use a clip within LinkedIn.

But I think in this context here, Tracy. Yeah, this is a great LinkedIn post where you've got all this written stuff about it and it's got the landscape, full width, typical zoom video size in there. If you posted a tall format video, it's not going to appear in this post any taller. It's going to appear in this. It's going to take up all the same space. It's just going to be using the center third of the area with black bars at the side. So you're not really helping yourself. I think you're right. It's more appropriate for the full landscape, typical HD video to be displayed there. So make sure you recognize that.

Yeah. And try some things. This is the other part. I see you guys Posting. And a lot of you use posting tools like Buffer or Meet Edgar or Hootsuite, and you use all these posting tools, but you never look at what your stuff looks like on your own channel. So make sure you're looking at it. Like, before you make any changes and choices, make sure you've looked at what you you did last year or did last post and compare that and say, is it still looking good or not? I do it all the time. I make a screenshot of a client's stuff and then I make comments all over it. And then I say, make these design changes. This is why it's not working. So Facebook, again, you have cover photos, you have group covers. There's a whole host of differences in the usable area for it. So you really have to pay attention. On Facebook, image posts and highlighted images, they tend to like square and portrait because they're a little more geared towards what's going on on the Instagra side of things. Like, they're very similar, probably because they allow this cross posting where you can post on Instagram and then automatically post on Facebook or post on Facebook and automatically post on Instagram. So it tends to have the same kind of feel to it. Stories and reels work the same way. They fill the space. They need to be in that 9 by 16 aspect ratio. 1080 by 920, 1920. Initially, that's reversed.

Yeah, it's actually 1920 by 1080. Right?

No, no, no, because it's narrower. We're doing width by height. I know, it's a little weird. Every. All of our numbers here are width by height, height, not height by width.

Width by height, width by height. All right, all right, fair enough.

So anyway, so, yeah, so be thinking about that. Fill the space. Fill the space as much as possible. Keep your branding low. Everything Instagram, you'll see the same thing. You have things that look like really good on the profile. Right. Or on your carousel, as they call it. Right. Those posts look good. They're typically square or portrait, but done in a really nice way where things can get cut off. So you've got to be careful about the usable area if you're going to use your portraits, the Instagram reels and videos that. It's the same size. It's the same size on Facebook, it's the same size on YouTube. You don't have to think that hard. You can just use the same. The guest promotion tips work better on Instagram. So that's why I included the tip for that here, because you can do a Collaboration where you can tag someone, they can share the post. You tag someone and they accept it and it automatically shows to all their friends on Instagram. So this is a really good way. My mom just did a great collab with Dr. Liz Hafer who has a podcast. She's renaming it. But the well connected podcast is coming out.

Yeah, the well connected podcast is coming soon. Yes.

Yeah, coming soon. And it was get your head on straight. But they collabed because my mom did a piece of art in her office and it was beautiful. They collabed and the commenting is helping Dr. Hafer because they can connected and she's seeing the comments and they're able to share the comments and they're each able to comment on each other's on that post. It's really engaging right now.

Cross promotion, folks. We've talked about that.

Absolutely. So use that to your advantage. So one of the best places for guest promotion for in our internal language, we call that Ecobait, guys. So for those of you who use our system, our Ecobait where we share a quote of what we said about our guests, the ideal place for that is Instagram. It works really well here. The second ideal place is Pinterest. It's just as a save. Threads is also part. Threads is much more similar to X and more similar to the way X used to be than the way X is right now. It has a 500 character per thread limit though, so it's higher. They want a little bit more lengthy post. Twitter and X, there are images there. I think the square works best on X. That's just it. But you can totally use your landscape views. So very similar to what I was saying to use on LinkedIn, you can use on Twitter. X. I'm sorry, I'm never going to get out of the. Still wanting to call it Twitter. It's really hard for me to do that.

Well, how long did we call it Twitter?

I know, it's way too long to not so. Remember when I told you about Pinterest, Tom? So Pinterest has stories which are vertical for shorts, you can use video clips. Right. In Pinterest, it works great. You can also use pins and collection covers. And those are squares. They're still best viewed as squares. So if you're going to save anything, like you're going to save quote cards, you're going to do those things. I still recommend them. You can do portrait pins, there's no problem with that. But they're a slightly different size than you would do on Instagram. So it just makes it more difficult for you. You might as well create what's ideal and do a square pin in instead.

These are great. I like all these graphics. This is our best blueprint yet, I think.

Thank you. Thank you. I spent a lot of time on it. Extra time. So again, 1080 by 1920 portrait TikTok videos. Right. So we're still the same size that we've been using on YouTube. Right. It's all working for us and that is helping us kind of keep it, keep that clip part. So if we don't over brand it, keeping that clip part because the usable area is slightly different, like there is still on TikTok, the same little bar down the side with the likes and the comments and the hearts, but the captioning's in a different place or the post is slightly smaller. So if we keep it to the YouTube size, we pretty much are able to cover everything. That's what I've discovered in sort of the way that we do our video shorts. So keep it to that usable area. I threw in Google my business this year. Our Google my business is doing really well. Yeah, we send to how to videos. Someone's looking for a business to help them podcast instead of finding. I mean we are local technically, but we're showing up to local businesses for advice. So think about that. If you haven't created a Google my business profile, it's not that hard. If you already have the Google workspace or you already have anything Gmail, any of those things, you can create this very easily. I included Reddit this year.

One of our clients and our son in law who works for him, Jonathan Hazard, is doing a fantastic job on Reddit. They're finding an audience, they're finding ways to communicate and engage and be relatable over there, which is really important. But our post sizes image, post 1920 by 1080, everything still works exactly like we need it, just a slightly different sizing. Maybe we flip it, maybe we use our landscape. Just be thinking about where you want to put these things and then make your choice. Snapchat 1080 by 1922. Like a story image, it's a little bit different. So Reddit and Snapchat, you can use the same things.

1920 also or 1922. Like you don't mean. You mean 1920 also, right?

Also, yes.

All right. For our podcast listeners, I don't want them to think 1920, 1022 pixels. No, that's not what you meant.

Okay, thank you. Thank you for hearing that.

Yeah, I was thinking about the Podcast, Listen. I'm like, oh, that one. They can't see the number on the.

So Blue sky has some weird portrait post, size 1080 by 1350. It's just weird. Like, it's just. This is one of those things where they didn't understand how they should be using it. But their landscape posts work just fine, and that's what I highly recommend. Or if you're going to use squares and other places, use square here, too. So just keep it consistent. Pick the one. Don't worry about what's optimized for Blue sky right now, because that portrait post is just. It's just weird. Nobody's complying with it and it cuts stuff off in a funny way.

Okay, Blue sky, thanks for screwing up the pattern. All right.

Yeah, they're screwing up the pattern. Tumblr. We have a lot of clients using Tumblr. Feed, photos, image posts. They're weird aspect ratios, too.

I thought Tumblr was still a thing.

It is. It is. WhatsApp, the stories. It will shrink it down to there. So I think you're probably fine. You can broadcast with any image, any size. So that's like a little bit different about how WhatsApp works, where you go, you know, you go and broadcast it. But the Square post works just fine. So, you know, again, thinking about what you might want to use there. Rumble, Tumblr and rumblr, two different things.

I hear a lot of customers are engaging in Rumble.

Yep. So this is the same format as you use in your YouTube video. So it works here. Just use it, reuse it, have our free podcast marketing tips. You know what, my font really messed up when I saved that as a PDF. I had this really cool spray paint font. Ooh, I wonder what I have to do to get it to work. I will have to ask our team. Yeah, because that didn't save properly. It was really cool looking. I was really proud of my design.

If you didn't say anything, it looked. I mean, it looks all right. All right, so those of you listening to the podcast, the Tracy stopped sharing the screen. So this blueprint is going to be available to everyone to download, right?

Yeah, absolutely. So we will ask for you to click the button to join the AI Newsletter. If you're already a member, you don't need to worry about it. We're not going to send you, we're not going to double up. You. You can download it. So it'll be just fine.

So you gotta sign up for our weekly Podcasters United newsletter, which gives you information about our new topics every week that we're talking about, among other really valuable info. So you're gonna trade your name and email and you get this PDF for free. It seems like a pretty reasonable.

Yeah, I mean, look, if you don't like it, unsubscribe, but I suggest you stay subscribed because we put out stuff and it's a custom newsletter for you every single week. So it's, it's, you know, pretty exciting. But the other thing that I want to point out is on Podcasters United, we have a load of social media content. It's one of our biggest tip areas. So if you actually, I'm just going to share my screen and show that to people here right now. Why not? Right. So you go to Podcasters United and you are in the Tips for Podcasters page when you go down. I have a social media for podcasters section. But look at all these topics, Tom. When I pops up all about social media banners, can I use social media banners on Pinterest and how do I do it? Can I use my social media banners on X and how do I do it? Checking YouTube music for your podcast. Does YouTube channel age really matter for podcasters? Like, there's a ton of stuff in here that are just like random weird questions that people have asked us that we created tips for. How do I designate my show as a YouTube podcast? Somebody just used that this past week and had a problem and we solved it. So these things are all here for you to use. But we do have our social media masterclass here. Social media power moves. We have some advanced classes for people as well. Now, I'm gonna say classes, advanced videos, because advanced tips for people. And then we have the Essential Guide to Social Media Posting and the Social Media Size Guide, which will be updated with the new version when the. When the new video and the new blog post comes out in about two weeks. So when you're hearing this, most likely it's already out.

It's already there. Yeah. If you're listening at a podcast or watching this on YouTube, this is all.

Free, but when you click on to download it, it is going to ask you for your email.

So, yeah, well, I think that's a reasonable fair trade.

I think that at the end of the day, if you downloaded it and immediately unsubscribed, you're going to be sorry. And I say that not because I'm conceited about it, but because our newsletter is so full of keeping you up on these things all year round. And by the mere fact that you are interested in social media and content creation, you know you're in the right place to get more and more of that. The other thing we post a lot about is AI. We have an AI flipboard. We have other things that are available to you. So AI, social media, YouTube, because we have a YouTube expert and we have a book author expert. So coming in May, Juliet Clark is going to be here. And coming in a week, we're going to have Frana Sero back to talk about YouTube. So we've got a lot of great experts that can give you advice in all kinds of areas of your content creation and your social media building. Building.

And remember, our newsletter for podcasters United learns what kind of content you're interested in by what you click on and what you look at. And the AI learns and it gives you more of the types of things that it learns you are more likely to be interested in. So it's customized. It's not the same for everybody. So that's why Tracy's suggesting stay in it for a while and interact with it. Because even if you just choose to click on some things and read some things that are of interest to you, maybe bookmark them for later, if you don't have time to watch them, then you're going to train the newsletter to learn what you're interested in and that will pay off down the road. So that's why it's kind of a long term. We recommend. It's a long term thing. How long we've been doing the newsletter now, Tracy? More than a year?

Yeah, about a year and a quarter. At least almost a year and a half. So I just want to recap a little piece here, Tom, before we go go from this topic because we don't only cover it about once, we only cover it once a year. So I really want to hit on this and thinking about this. When I said keep it simple, what I meant was don't make this overly complicated. From a technical side pick, I'm going to make guest quote shares in squares. I'm going to make video clips, 19, you know, 1080 by 1920. Right. Like I'm just going to do that. I'm going to make five of them, 10 of them. It doesn't matter. I don't care about that part of it. But I'm going to keep this technical part simple and I'm going to use it across as many channels as I can. Then I'm going to keep it human and keep it unfiltered and I'm going to Take out as much of this over branding, over structure, overly done things as. And focus on the human message. Focus on being relatable, focus on being engaging. Focus on engaging with your audience and commenting and, and connecting and conversing. One of the things that I see too often, and this is what is why people are not participating in social media right now. Because it's unilateral. I had to explain that term to my 16 year old recently. Unilateral. It's one way. I'm sending you a message and I honestly don't care how you're receiving it. Unilateral communication and transactional communication. I am giving you something. Tom and I are giving you this guide we spent hours and hours working on and had three experts in our team working on.

I won't take credit for that. I spent like five minutes reviewing a few things. Tracy spent hours and hours and so did others on our team. So we divide and conquer. We don't always do everything.

Put the work in for you and yeah, do we expect your email back? Absolutely. But we gave first. That's what I want you to think about. Think about how I can do something and be involved. The stakeholders care about what you care about, how I can get that conversation going with you, how I can create a participatory model of social media where I can get you to participate more. That's what I really mean by engaging. So at the end of the day, we really have to think about our purpose, our message and what we're bringing to the world. And when we think about that strategy, then making all the selections on which size to choose, which platform to be in, all that stuff becomes really logical and really easy to make your choices. So I hope that I've really, like, not overwhelmed you. I know this is a lot, but remember, the guide's there for you to flip to when you decide I'm going to get on Rumble, what do I need to know? Right, it's there for you.

Yeah, save it because you may not need it all today, but keep it handy. You will need to refer to it at other times and then obviously, if it's been a whole year, look out for an update.

Come back and see us. Exactly. Well, thanks everyone for listening. We so appreciate you here. And we will be back next week with some more topics here on feed. You'd brand heard something valuable today but didn't get a chance to write it down. No worries, we've got you covered. We partnered up with podcasters united.org where podcast hosts like you can get free resources, free masterclasses, the largest podcast tip library assembled, and free promotion opportunities while you're there. Don't forget to follow us on YouTube and on social UnitedWeekod so you can get feed your brand live. Until next time, keep podcasting.