There are two ways to share videos to your social channels through Buffer. The first way is to upload your video within the composer and the second way is to share a link to the video. This guide provides an overview of how videos will appear and behave on each social network.
| Video Upload | Video Link | |
| ✓ | ✓ | |
| ✓ | Technically possible but not recommended | |
| ✓ | ✓ | |
| ✓ | ✓ | |
| ✓ | ✓ | |
| TikTok | ✓ | Not supported |
| Google business profiles | Not supported | Not supported |
| Mastodon | ✓ | ✓ |
📝 Please note, it's only possible to include one video per post at this time.
This article contains the following sections:
- Video upload requirements
- Custom thumbnails and titles
- How videos appear on Facebook
- How videos appear on Instagram and other Instagram specs
- How videos appear on Twitter
- How videos appear on LinkedIn
- How videos appear on Pinterest
- How videos appear on TikTok
General video upload requirements
There are some specific guidelines for videos sent through Buffer to the various social networks. We'll give an overview here and then get more specific in each of the sections below.
- File size: up to 1GB (100 MB for Instagram)
- File format:
- Twitter, Pinterest, Facebook, and LinkedIn: MP4, MOV, AVI, and M4V
- TikTok: The video file formats accepted are MOV, MP4, or WEBM.
- Instagram: MP4 and MOV
The video you upload will be converted to MP4 encoded with H264, and a maximum resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels (HD). Larger files are likely to be compressed to ensure they can be posted to the social network, but quality loss should be minimal.
Unfortunately, we can't support Apple ProRes or raw camera formats like ARRI and RED or any videos encoded with HEVC at this time.
Why is my video taking a while to upload?
When a video file is uploaded, there are a few steps the file needs to go through, including checking the file to ensure it can be passed over through the API, having AWS (Amazon Web Services) transcode the file, and generating potential thumbnails. When generating thumbnails, we look for a different thumbnail every 15 seconds. This means that for a video that is 30 minutes long, we would try to generate at least 120 different images. This can be a key factor that affects the upload speed.
Depending on the file size, the length of the video, and the connection speed, each of these things could take different lengths of time and determine how long the overall process takes.
Custom thumbnails and titles
Choosing a custom thumbnail and title for your video
Once your video has finished uploading, click the small pencil icon at the bottom left of the video to adjust the title and choose a thumbnail for networks that support custom thumbnails (more details per channel in chart below). Thumbnails are generated at 15 second intervals of the video. By default, the first frame of the video (0 seconds) will be used as the thumbnail.
Choosing a thumbnail for your Instagram video works a little differently. Once your video has finished uploading, click Edit Cover. From there, drag the slider to the position in the video you'd like to use as the cover image and then click Save cover.
⭐️ The option to choose a cover for your Instagram video is only available on our paid plans. Learn more about our plans and pricing here.
📝 Good-to-Knows
- Thumbnails can only be edited for Instagram and Pinterest posts, and Instagram Reels. On all other channels, videos are played automatically.
- Please note, you are unable to choose a cover if you have Set Instagram Reminders for all posts turned on.
How thumbnails and titles are used on each social network
Since videos appear and behave a little differently on each social network, the thumbnail and title you choose will only be used in certain places.
| Videos in most places on Facebook play automatically so thumbnails are generally not used. Unfortunately, in places where a thumbnail is shown, Facebook does not use the thumbnail you have chosen in Buffer. However, the title you enter will be displayed at the top of the video post. | |
| Videos on Instagram play automatically on the home screen feed, which means thumbnails are redundant in that location. Therefore, any custom thumbnail you choose will not be displayed there. However, the custom thumbnail will be used as the cover of your video on your Instagram profile grid. | |
| Videos (whether within Twitter's permitted file limits or not) do not play automatically. Unfortunately, Twitter does not use the thumbnail you have chosen in Buffer. However, the custom title will be used if the video is outside of Twitter's permitted file limits, in which case the video will be displayed as a link to Buffer's video player. | |
| Videos published on LinkedIn will appear natively and automatically play in the feed. LinkedIn currently does not support custom thumbnails. | |
| Videos on Pinterest will play automatically unless a user has set their preferences within Pinterest otherwise, so adding a thumbnail/cover image could be helpful. The title of the video will be shown at the bottom of the video in the feed. | |
| TikTok | Videos on TikTok will play automatically in the feed. |
How videos appear on Facebook
Video upload
Videos appear natively once published on Facebook. They play automatically in both the home feed and on the Page itself.
Video link
Your Facebook post will include a link preview. Users are able to click on the video link and will be taken to the video in a new browser tab.
How videos appear on Instagram and other Instagram specs
Video upload
Videos appear natively once published on Instagram. They play automatically on the home screen feed but on your profile grid, the custom thumbnail you've chosen will be shown, and users can tap on it to play the video.
Instagram post specifications
- Video length: Between 3 and 60 seconds
- Bitrate: Below 5Mbp
- Frame rate: 23-60 FPS
If your video is not within this range when you upload it to the composer, you'll see a message letting you know. You'll need to adjust the video and then re-upload it.
Instagram reel specifications
- Video length: Between 3 seconds and 15 minutes
- Bitrate: Below 5Mbps
- Frame rate: 23-60 FPS
- Aspect ratio: 9:16
How to find the bitrate of your video
Windows:
- Right click the video file.
- Choose Properties.
- Click the Details tab.
- Under the "Video" section, you should see Total bitrate.
Mac:
- Open your video in Quicktime.
- From the "Window" menu, select Show Movie Inspector.
- From the Inspector, scroll down to the "Video Details" section.
- Here, you should see the Data Rate.
Video link
Instagram does not currently support hyperlinks within captions. Therefore, if you include a link to a video within the composer, it will not be hyperlinked once published. Instead, it would be published as plain text. Users could copy and paste the link from the caption to a new browser window, which would take them to the video. Additionally, when scheduling a post for Instagram, you're required to upload either an image or a video. Therefore, after dropping the link into the composer, you'll still need to choose or upload an image to accompany it. For these reasons, this method is not commonly used. Instead, we would recommend using the upload option described above.
How videos appear on Twitter
Video upload
Videos appear natively once published to Twitter, if they are within Twitter’s permitted file limits of 512MB and up to 140 seconds long. Videos are not played automatically on either the timeline or the profile itself, so users will need to click on the video to play it.
📝 Please note, an mp4 file that only contains audio cannot be shared to Twitter. The mp4 file must contain video. If you are looking to share an audio file to Twitter, the best alternative would be to host the audio file elsewhere online and link to it (instead of uploading it within the composer). Twitter would then generate an audio Twitter Card from the link.
Videos that are longer than Twitter’s threshold will be displayed as a link to Buffer's video player. Users are able to click on the video link and it will be played within the Tweet (i.e. as opposed to opening in a new tab or window).
Video link
Your tweet will be displayed as a video post. Users are able to click on the video link and it will be played within the tweet itself (i.e. as opposed to opening in a new tab or window).
How videos appear on LinkedIn
Video upload
Videos published through Buffer to LinkedIn will play automatically in a user's feed if they are within LinkedIn's limits of 75kb - 200MB and in MP4 format.
Video link
Your post will include a link preview. TikTok videos will play automatically within the post itself, while YouTube videos will link out to YouTube.
How videos appear on Pinterest
Video upload
Because Buffer supports video pins on Pinterest business accounts, your video will play automatically as your followers scan through their feed. The exception to this would be if the follower changed their preferences within Pinterest to prevent automatic video play.
📝 Video pins are only available for Pinterest business accounts. If you happen to have a Pinterest personal account still connected to Buffer from before access to personal accounts was removed in June of 2021, the videos you upload will be displayed as static images.
If your video plays automatically for a user, your thumbnail/cover image will display as a static image when the video ends. If the user has chosen not to have videos play automatically, your thumbnail/cover image will display in their feed before clicking to play the video.
There are a couple of other pieces to note around your Pinterest video uploads. First, videos can be between 4 seconds and 15 minutes in length. Also, Pinterest suggests using square videos (1:1), or vertical videos with the aspect rations of 2:3, 4:5, or 9:16.
Video link
When scheduling a post for Pinterest, you can choose to use your destination link (formerly known as source link) to point to any URL, including a URL that leads to a video. Whichever destination link you use, Pinterest does require that you upload either an image or a video to the post. Therefore, after dropping the link into the Destination link field, you'll still need to choose or upload an image to accompany it. Once published, your image or video pin will be displayed, and when users click on it, they will be sent to the destination link you included in the Destination link field when composing your post.
How videos appear on TikTok
Video Upload
Your TikTok videos will play automatically in the feed. Also, while you are able to select a thumbnail for your video within the Buffer composer, TikTok doesn't currently acknowledge that selection, and it unfortunately won't translate to your published TikTok video.
