9:16 has become the common language of social media. Well prepared, a single shoot feeds three platforms; poorly prepared, it gets cut off by their interfaces. The common format is 9:16, at 1080 × 1920 pixels: it fills the screen of a phone held upright. Instagram recommends Reels of 3 minutes at most; YouTube has accepted 3-minute Shorts since 15 October 2024. The bottom, the right-hand side and the top of the image are covered by the interface: no text or logo there. A video must make sense without sound, and its music must be cleared for commercial use. 9:16, the common format Reels, TikTok and Shorts share the same canvas: a vertical image with a 9:16 ratio, i.e. 1080 pixels wide by 1920 high. It’s the format that fills the screen of a phone held normally, with no black bars and no cropping. The platforms accept other proportions, but a video shorter than the screen immediately looks smaller, less present, among neighbours that take up all of it. Editing directly in 9:16 remains the safest choice. Shoot vertically, or crop afterwards? You can film horizontally and crop in the edit, provided you shoot in high definition and keep the subject centred: a 9:16 frame cut from a 16:9 image keeps only about a third of its width. For an ad or an important video, it’s better to shoot vertically from the start. Lengths, platform by platform Instagram Reels: up to 3 minutes. Beyond that, according to Instagram, a reel is no longer recommended to people who don’t follow the account. YouTube Shorts: up to 3 minutes since 15 October 2024, for square or vertical videos. TikTok: up to 10 minutes for a video filmed in the app, more for an uploaded video. The fact that a platform accepts three minutes doesn’t mean you have to fill them. The right length is the length of the message: an offer fits in fifteen seconds, a demonstration or a before-and-after may need a minute. Any shot that has nothing left to say is a shot the viewer skips. The zones the interface covers On all three platforms, the image is never seen on its own: the interface sits on top of it. At the bottom, the account name, the caption, the music and sometimes an action button. On the right-hand side, the column of likes, comments and shares. At the top, the tabs and controls. A headline placed at the bottom of the image, or a logo stuck in a corner, disappears under these elements. The practical rule: keep text, logo and subtitles in the central part, leaving a wide band free at the bottom, a narrower band at the top and a margin on the right. Meta publishes the exact margins of its vertical formats in its ads guide; edit with a template that shows them. Everything happens in the first seconds A vertical video is watched in a feed people scroll through. If the start doesn’t hook them, the rest isn’t seen. So you start with what’s interesting: the result, the product in action, the question the viewer is asking. Not the logo, and not an introduction. a strong shot from the very first frame, which also serves as the thumbnail; short on-screen text saying what the video is about; tight editing: a shot that has said everything gets cut; a clear ending that says what to do next, both written and spoken. Sound, subtitles and music A video must make sense without sound: people often watch where they can’t turn it on, on public transport, at the office, in a waiting room. Subtitles aren’t a bonus, they’re part of the edit. They also make the video accessible to deaf and hard-of-hearing people. Music calls for more care. On a business account, platforms limit the tracks available, because a commercial song used to promote a brand raises a rights question. TikTok reserves its Commercial Music Library for businesses, and its terms state that these tracks are valid only on TikTok. Meta offers its Sound Collection, a library of royalty-free music and sound effects. One track, one platform A track picked from one platform’s library doesn’t follow the video to the others. To publish the same edit everywhere, choose music whose licence covers every planned use, or have it composed. One shoot, three platforms Write a shot list designed for 9:16: tight framing, subject centred, text planned for the safe zone. Shoot several openings for the same video: you keep the one that hooks best. Edit a master version with no burned-in text, then one version per platform, with its own text, subtitles and music. Export at 1080 × 1920 and watch each version on a phone, interface included, before publishing it. Publish each version from its original file: a TikTok video reposted as-is on Instagram keeps the TikTok watermark.