Prepare one video or image that works on every platform

Start from the strictest case

When you post to all social media at once, the same file is shown five different ways. One fills the phone screen with it, another sets it in a feed, and a third lays buttons and a username over the lower part. You cannot design for each separately in a single pass, so design for the strictest case and let the others be easy.

In practice that is a full-screen vertical video with interface elements over its edges. A file that reads clearly there will usually read clearly everywhere.

Shape: go vertical

Short-form video on the main platforms is built around a tall, phone-shaped frame, commonly described as 9:16. A vertical file suits short-video feeds directly and still displays in a standard feed. A wide landscape file sits small and letterboxed on a phone. If you must choose one shape for a single pass, choose vertical.

For still images, a tall or square frame travels better than a wide one for the same reason. Exact dimensions and maximum lengths change, so check each platform's current guidance and work to the tightest limit in your set.

Keep the point in the safe zone

Platforms place their own controls over a video: the caption and account name along the bottom, buttons down one side, sometimes a bar at the top. Anything you put there gets covered. Keep faces, on-screen text, prices and dates in the central area of the frame, with clear margins all round. Preview the file on a phone. If the date disappears behind a button, move it.

Sound, music and rights

Assume many people will watch with the sound off, and let the picture and on-screen words carry the message. Then think about where the sound came from. A track added inside one platform's own editor is generally licensed for use on that platform only. Export that file and upload it elsewhere, and the audio may be muted or the post restricted.

For a file that goes everywhere, use original sound, speech or music you have the right to use on every platform.

The opening frame and final file checks

Each platform shows a still cover for a video on your profile and in search. Left to chance, it is often a blurred mid-movement frame. Make the first second of the video a usable cover in itself: sharp, with the subject visible and no fade from black. Then run four quick checks.

• Watch the whole file once on a phone, start to finish.
• Check the length is within the shortest limit among your platforms.
• Check no platform's watermark is on it.
• Keep the original file where you can find it, in case one platform needs a retry.

Where Link AI fits

For the asset we recommend Link AI by Linkme, since the agent that publishes the file is also the one that makes it. Making the images and videos is on Linkme's list of what Link AI does. The one video the page shows being made is a Reel: a POV clip of 15 seconds that follows a trending format and has trending audio attached. Other formats can be requested by prompt, and the page shows 'Create a story post' and 'Create a carousel post'.

You still review the asset before it goes out. Nothing on Linkme's page explains how a given format or audio choice carries across all five platforms, which matters after the point about music rights above. That is worth seeing for yourself. Book a demo to try Link AI, request a video for a real announcement, and see how it comes out on each of the five.

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