Most social media mistakes aren’t about strategy. They’re about graphics that are the wrong size, inconsistent from one post to the next, or clearly built from the same free template everyone else is using. None of that is hard to fix once you know what to check.
The sizes that actually matter right now
Platforms update their recommended dimensions often enough that last year’s cheat sheet is usually slightly wrong. As a working guide for 2026:
- Instagram feed post: 1080×1350px (4:5) gets more screen space in-feed than a square post; 1080×1080px still works fine for grid consistency
- Instagram Story and Reel: 1080×1920px (9:16), with key text kept away from the top and bottom 250px where the UI sits
- Facebook post: 1200×630px for a link share; 1080×1080px for a standalone image post
- Facebook cover photo: 820×312px on desktop, but it crops differently on mobile, so keep anything important centred
- LinkedIn post image: 1200×627px; LinkedIn company banner is 1128×191px
- LinkedIn carousel (PDF post): 1080×1080px per slide, which performs noticeably better for reach than a single static image
These numbers shift periodically, so when in doubt, check the platform’s current help page rather than a design blog from two years ago, this one included.
The mistake that costs the most: inconsistency
A single badly-sized graphic is a minor annoyance. Inconsistent graphics across every post are what actually make a business look smaller and less established than it is. If your colours shift between posts, your logo sits in a different corner every time, and your fonts change depending on who made the slide, none of it reads as a coincidence to the person scrolling past, it reads as “this business doesn’t have its act together.”
The fix isn’t more design time. It’s a simple, repeatable template, same colour positions, same logo placement, same font pairing, reused for every post. Consistency is a design decision made once and then followed, not something redone from scratch each time.
Templates are fine. Relying on them entirely isn’t
Templates exist for a reason: regular posting needs speed, and not every post is worth a from-scratch design. Using a consistent template for routine content, quote graphics, weekly tips, simple announcements, is the right call.
Where it falls short is anything that’s actually meant to represent the business at its best: a product launch, a paid ad, your profile and cover images, a campaign announcement. Those are worth a properly designed piece, because they’re the graphics most likely to be a stranger’s first impression of the business, and a generic template rarely holds up under that kind of scrutiny.
A simple way to check your current feed
Open your last twelve posts side by side, as thumbnails, the way someone scrolling your profile actually sees them. Do they look like they belong to the same business? Same colours, same logo treatment, same general feel? If they look like twelve different people made them, that’s the first thing to fix, before worrying about anything else.
Getting the sizes right stops your graphics from looking cropped or stretched. Getting the consistency right is what actually makes a business look like a business, rather than a collection of one-off posts.
Graphic Design
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