Facebook is used by the widest range of demographics — where else can you see your old boss, your crazy aunt, and your high school crush in one place?

This makes it a great platform to target nearly any audience.

And video has become the hottest type of content to share on Facebook…

So if your business is looking to connect with your community, you should definitely be sharing and promoting your videos there.

But understanding all the different video sizes/formats needed for the various parts of Facebook can be confusing, so we’ve created this simple guide.

Read on to learn the basics and some hot tips…

Facebook Feed Video Sizes

The News Feed includes updates and posts from friends, Pages, Groups, and advertisers.

You can use video in Facebook’s News Feed to show off your brand in all sorts of ways. Utilizing video here is a great way to capture the attention of new and relevant audiences.

RATIO: 4:5 is recommended as it takes up the most real estate on the page. 16:9 or 9:16 will be accepted but may be masked to 4:5

FILE TYPE: .MOV or .MP4

HOT TIP: Both captions and sound are optional but recommended here. Adding both to your video will ensure that your viewer gets your message whether they have sound turned on or not.

We also recommended showing your logo within the first 3 seconds of the video to guarantee that even if someone scrolls right past your video, you still get the brand exposure.

Facebook Watch Video Sizes

When people click a video from their Facebook News Feed, the video opens in the Video Watch Feed, which includes additional videos that they can watch.

Here is where you can easily fall down a Facebook video hole, meaning it’s a great place to reach new audiences.

RATIO: 4:5

FILE TYPE: .MP4 or .MOV

HOT TIP: The resolution of these videos should be at least 1080×1080, but upload the highest resolution possible without letter or pillar boxing to ensure your video looks super sharp.

Facebook In-Stream Video Sizes

In-stream video allows you to deliver video ads to people watching videos on Facebook from familiar publishers (like the New York Times) and digital-first creators.

These ads only appear on mobile devices and only after 60 seconds of the main video content.

RATIO: 16:9 or 1:1

FILE TYPE: .MP4 or .MOV

HOT TIP: The in-stream video placement will play video ads that are 15 seconds or less for the full duration of the video.

Video ads that are longer than 15 seconds will show the first 15 seconds before giving viewers the option to tap Continue Watching to see the remainder of the video, so make sure that everything the viewer really needs to know is included in the first 15 seconds (i.e. logo, important messaging and even the call to action).

Facebook Stories Video Size

These are the fullscreen vertical ads that appear between organic Facebook Stories from your friends

RATIO: 9:16

FILE TYPE: .MP4 or .MOV

HOT TIP: Leave about 250 pixels (~14%) of the top and bottom of the video free from text and logos to avoid covering these key elements with the call-to-action (like a “Book Now” or “Learn More” swipe up).

In Conclusion

When you’re planning your next video, keep in mind that more than 2.8 billion people use Facebook every single month…

(For comparison, there are 7.674 billion in the entire world!)

You can now reach them via video on Facebook: they’re scrolling their newsfeeds to see updates from family, keeping up with friends’ daily lives on Stories, and browsing funny content on Facebook Watch.

Share video content everywhere you can on Facebook — and format it all correctly with our simple guide above.

And remember, as Facebook itself has said, the content that perform best on their platform are ones that are original and authentic — so create a video with EditMate for your next campaign!