Every social network rewards different viewing behaviors and feeds. To maximize your video's reach, engagement, and visual polish, you must adapt your export formats, aspect ratios, and caption configurations to match the technical constraints and UI overlays of each platform.
📱TikTok
Format: 9:16 vertical (1080x1920)
Duration: 15–60 seconds is the sweet spot.
Design Rule: Keep captions in the vertical center. The right-hand column (likes, comments) and bottom area (caption description, audio) will cover any text placed near the edges.
📸Instagram Reels
Format: 9:16 vertical
Duration: Under 90 seconds.
Design Rule: Reels share to the feed grid, which crops the video to a 4:5 ratio. Keep important visual details and titles within the central 4:5 zone to ensure they look polished on your profile grid.
🎥YouTube Shorts
Format: 9:16 vertical
Duration: Strictly under 60 seconds.
Design Rule: YouTube overlays the channel icon and subscribe button on the bottom-right. Keep captions high enough to avoid overlapping this permanent channel interface.
Format: 1:1 square or 9:16 vertical
Duration: 1–3 minutes.
Design Rule: LinkedIn has a professional, desktop-heavy audience. Widescreen or square formats look clean in the feed, but 9:16 vertical is increasingly popular for mobile-first scrolling. Use clean, understated captions.
Platform Safe Zones
Always verify your captions sit in the "safe zone" (typically between 20% and 70% of screen height). Placing text too low will overlap with platform description copy, and placing text too high will be hidden by headers or search bars.
Desktop vs. Mobile Layout Decisions
When exporting, select the aspect ratio that matches how your audience consumes the content:
Do: Use 9:16 for mobile feeds
Deliver maximum screen real estate on mobile devices. Vertical videos capture 100% of a mobile user's viewport, leading to higher retention rates.
Don't: Use 16:9 for mobile-first feeds
Do not post widescreen videos with large letterboxes to TikTok or Reels. They look unprofessional and are frequently skipped by mobile users.
Professional Embeds & Landing Pages
For websites, documentation, and blog posts, 16:9 widescreen remains the standard. If you are embedding clips to showcase features or highlight testimonials:
- Export at 1080p or 4K to guarantee crisp text legibility.
- Ensure the video player has clear play controls and supports closed captions for accessibility compliance.
- Keep the branding minimal so the asset fits naturally into the design system of your website.