Everything You Wanted to Know About Image Sizes for YouTube

If you are using social media platforms and networks to promote your brand or business, then photos have a big role to play in the effort. Images of your work, product, service or brand help people recognize, associate, connect and engage with you. Images that interest, awaken and induce curiosity are best used for social media marketing.

Frankly it is not as simple as using images, images must be used “effectively” and in line with guidelines of the platforms you use. One has to be careful about sizes and look in to the importance of each image for your page or brand presence on a social media platform. Here is a quick guide to image sizes for YouTube.

Uploading an interesting video on YouTube is not the only way you can use YouTube for promotion. You can set up your own channel and broadcast videos to engage with your target audience. Most people generally come across your videos only when they Google something. But an effective use of images will help you grab attention on YouTube.

Image sizes applicable:

From the “Appearance” tab, you can add your channel Channel Icon, background image and channel banner image map.

• Channel Icon 800px wide, 800px tall - 1MB
• Background 1500px wide, 2000px tall - 1MB
• Banner Space / Image Map 970px wide, 0-150px tall

If you want the banner to be clickable, you can specify an image map with links that point either to different areas of your YouTube channel or to external sites.

• Custom Thumbnail 640px wide, 70px tall - 2MB

Your custom thumbnail image should be as large as possible, as the image will also be used as the preview image in the embedded player. YouTube recommends your custom thumbnails should have a resolution of 1280x720 (with minimum width of 640 pixels).

A sure shot way to make a slick, professional looking YouTube Channel is to add your own background image. See how Pepsi India has done it right!

Images must be under 256k in size. You can tile the image or display it once, but you cannot adjust the space appearing around it, this is why you must choose something that will display well with boxes on top of it. It is possible to adjust the colour scheme of your channel to match with the new background.