Best Practices For Creating A Facebook Cover Photo (Including Size & Dimensions)
Did you set up your company’s Facebook page with a mediocre cover photo with the intention of adding a better one later?
Worse yet, does your Facebook page not even have a cover photo?
The cover photo of any Facebook page is arguably the most important element because it takes up the most real estate. With over 2 billion monthly active users it’s impossible to ignore the potential impact Facebook can have on your business, for that reason it’s just as important to put your best foot forward on Facebook as it is on your website.
To help you, we’ve put together 7 best practices we recommend every brand follows when creating their Facebook cover photo. Read on to learn more!
Best Practices For Facebook Cover Photos
1. Always Comply with Facebook’s Cover Photo Guidelines
For whatever reason a company might not adhere to Facebook’s official guidelines of Facebook when creating a cover photo. Usually it’s because they forget or they just don’t take the time to do their due diligence.
To avoid the risk of having your Facebook page taken down just make sure to follow these simple guidelines:
- Make sure that the cover photo you are displaying is not misleading, deceptive, or infringes on someone’s copyright.
- Don’t encourage users to upload the cover photo of your page to their personal profiles.
- Don’t include third-party brands, sponsors, or products within the cover photo of your page.
2. Make Sure Your Cover Photo Uses The Recommended Dimensions
According to Facebook the ideal cover image size for desktop is 820 pixels wide and 312 pixels tall. For mobile devices they recommend 640 pixels wide by 360 pixels tall.
So what does this mean?
Since you can’t upload two different cover photos you’ll want to optimizu your image so that it looks good using both dimensions. To do that, Buffer recommends uploading a cover photo that is 820 pixels wide by 462 pixels tall.
To help you visualize how this works Buffer created a graphic to demonstrate which parts of an image will display on desktop versus mobile.
3. Demonstrate Your Product’s Value
While it might be nice to believe that our social media posts are driving sales for our business, that’s just not the reality. In fact, a study found that social media only influences the purchase decisions of 5% of Americans.
The best way to engage with users on Facebook is to demonstrate your brand’s value from the first moment they land on your Facebook page. One way to do this is to includes your value proposition right in your Facebook cover photo. If it speaks to them and it solves a problem of theirs, they’ll engage more with your page and hopefully like it or visit your website.
Tentree is a clothing brand with a cause. They plant 10 trees for every item they sell. By including this value proposition directly in their Facebook cover photo they attract those shoppers who are looking to make a difference with their purchase.
4. Show A Little Personality
Your Facebook cover photo is a great opportunity to capture the attention of your audience and help them decide if they want to scroll down to learn more about your brand. So the challenge is, how do you do this with a single image or video?
One way is to create a cover photo that stands out from the crowd. As long as it matches your brand’s voice try something a little different.
A great example of this is Mailchimp, an email service provider that is known for their quirky personality. Their mascot, Freddie the chimp, is usually front and center in all of their brand’s messaging so Mailchimp is known for being a fun brand that people can relate to.
In the example below you’ll see a screenshot of their cover photo (which is actually a video) of ducklings swimming in a pool with Freddie’s face at the bottom. While this has nothing to do with email marketing, it sure does make Mailchimp seem like an enjoyable brand to work with!
5. Be True To Your Company’s Values
Are there a set of values that are important to your company? If so, consider including those values in your brand’s messaging because doing so can be a big driver for sales.
Why is it important to communicate your company’s values? One study found that 55% of online consumers are willing to pay more for products and services provided by companies that are committed to positive social and environmental impact.
Knowing this fact you should make it a point to communicate your values wherever it makes sense, including your Facebook cover photo!
In this example from Nordstrom, they use their cover photo as an opportunity to celebrate Pride Month. This is a great way to show that their company values inclusivity and sends a message that all shoppers are welcome at their stores.
6. Highlight New Products
Your cover photo is prime real estate on Facebook, so use it as an opportunity to help your brand reach its current goals.
If you have a new product that you want to raise awareness about, create a cover photo to raise awareness about it. Whatever you do, just don’t keep the same old cover photo for months or even years.
Bellroy is an accessories company most known for their leather wallets and other leather goods. In their Facebook cover photo they take the opportunity to highlight a new product, The Tokyo Tote. This not only helps drive fans to their website to view the new product but it also helps get the word out that they sell more than just wallets.
7. Consider Using A Video Instead Of An Image
Did you know that Facebook supports video in the cover photo area as well?
One benefit of using video is it’s more engaging than static images and can help your brand stand out from your competition.
In the example below clothing brand, Vuori, uses video on their Facebook page to demonstrate how versatile their clothes are with eye-catching video of models using their products for a variety of sports.
A study by Buzzsumo found that video posts had the highest engagement, so it stands to reason that visitors to your Facebook page will engage with your page more if you use a video in place of a cover photo.
8. Include A Description And A Shortened Link With Your Cover Photo
When uploading an image we almost always add a caption to it, but did you know you can do that for your cover photo too?
We often forget to do this and it’s a big missed opportunity, especially if you have a call to action in your cover photo.
To help support your call to action and reduce friction for your followers be sure to add a caption to your cover photo along with a link to wherever you want your followers to take action.
In the example below, The Honest Company has a caption announcing their new collection along with a link that will take their Facebook followers directly to it. Follow their lead and use a shortened link to track how many clicks it gets. This way you can measure the engagement your cover photo and caption receives.
How To Create A Great Cover Photo For Your Brand
Now that you understand what the best practices are for creating great cover photos I want to give you some ideas for how to go about creating them.
If you don’t have an eye for design or you don’t have the right tools don’t worry, because there are a few options that I will mention below to help you create the perfect cover photo for Facebook.
Search Stock Photo Websites
There are a bunch of stock photo websites which have high quality, professional looking photos.
While many stock photo sites will only license you a photo for a fee, there are also a ton of websites that offer stock photos for free. Here are a few of our favorites here at Limitless Designs:
- Pexels – Pexels is a stock photo website that has a great selection of stock photos. All of the images available on the site come with a free personal or commercial license so you don’t have to worry about crediting the photographer, but you can if you want. They even make it easy for you to make a donation to the author via PayPal if you want to thank them for their work.
- Burst – Burst is a resource from Shopify which gives you access to their library of photos. Since Shopify’s audience is ecommerce site owners the photos on Burst are geared towards ecommerce. All images on Burst are free and you don’t have to give credit to the photographer if you don’t want to, however you will need to sign up if you want to download the high quality version of any of their photos.
- Unsplash – Of all the free stock photo websites, Unsplash is probably the most popular. People love Unsplash because they have a huge library of amazing photos but they also don’t make you jump through a bunch of hoops to get them. You can easily download them without signing up, plus their licensing is great too. It’s completely up to you if you want to credit the photographer, if you do, they make it easy to do so.
Curate User Generated Content
Sometimes your customers are your best sources of content. If you’re fortunate enough to have built a good community around your brand then you may have customers who tag you in their pictures with your products.
If it matches your brand’s voice consider using these images in your Facebook cover photo. There are a couple of benefits to doing this.
First, images from your customers using your products will feel very genuine. Potential customers will see these images and it will act as social proof which will get them to buy your products.
Second, it will create advocates out of the customers whose images you used. They will feel special because you recognized them by featuring their image and it will make them more loyal to your brand, which means more word-of-mouth marketing and referrals.
Hire A Graphic Designer
If you don’t have the time, or the creativity, to create a Facebook cover photo yourself then you can hire someone to do it for you.
Finding a good graphic designer can be tough because you have to spend so much time sifting through all of the potential designers to find a good one.
When you do find a good designer you still have to find one that fits within your budget. If you were to use a service like Upwork for example, the average hourly rate for a graphic designer is $45 per hour.
Alternatively, you could get someone to create your Facebook cover photo for a flat price with a “gig service” like Fiverr. The tradeoff with a service like Fiverr is the service providers are less experienced and many of them don’t speak English well, which can make communicating your requirements hard.
Lastly, you can use an unlimited graphic design service to create your cover photo for you. With this type of service you get a dedicated designer for a flat rate. A flat-rate graphic design service will give you all of the benefits of the services I mentioned above except you won’t need to spend time searching for an experienced designer and your costs will be predictable.
Main Takeaways
A Facebook cover photo is arguably the most important element of your Facebook page, so you’ll want to put in the effort to make a good one in order to give your brand a polished, professional look.
Fortunately, creating a great looking Facebook cover photo for your business isn’t hard. Just follow the 7 best practices I mentioned above and you’ll be on your way to having a professional looking Facebook page in no time!
