The last two weeks on social media have been absolutely bonkers. 😵‍💫 As a Canadian who has to open these apps every day for work, I’ve been playing a ton of Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp on my iPad instead of doing my usual personal evening scroll-time.

I hope you’re taking care of yourself and limiting consumption overwhelm where possible because WTF, America…

Today, I’m aiming to meet you with something helpful if you’re still going to be using Instagram. The app just got a pretty big feed update!

If you look at your profile, you might notice that the thumbnails of your posts and reels are now vertically aligned.

​You can read more about the change and it’s goals from Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, here. Instagram users are spicy in the comments section if you’re curious (and somehow not burnt out on social media chaos).

The gist is: squares are so two-thousand-and-late! So here’s what you’ll need to keep in mind going forward 👇

Your Guide to the New IG Grid Sizing:

*bookmark this link so you can find this again when you’re getting your design on in Canva

Static Posts 

Create all your photo and carousel posts in 1080x1350px size (4:5 ratio). 

Keep in mind that what appears on your feed will be a little narrower, so try to keep all your important design elements within 1015x1350px.

Reels 

Create all your reels covers in 1080x1920px size (9:16 ratio). Again you’ll want to focus all the need-to-know-info in the center-most1015x1350 space of your canvas, as this will be seen when people visit your profile. If visitors toggle to your Reels feed, right now, they’ll see the full 1080x1920px cover.

Oh! And if someone’s account does not yet have the update they’ll still be seeing squares.

Personally, I am not worried about this with my clients or my own account. At the time of publishing this post all the Instagram accounts I work on have the update! So if you’re still waiting it shouldn’t be long now!

How to Fix Your Funky Feed:

If the update makes your feed look funky (not fun and fresh) because of existing square posts, there is no need to archive or delete this content! IG has given us an option to fix… kind of… it’s not the most aesthetic work around but your content is still valuable so if you’re OK with the look, here’s what you can do:

1. Open the Instagram app, tap on your profile image on the bottom right to visit your profile.
2. Tap on one of your square posts that isn’t looking so good from the feed view.
3. Tap the three dots icon on the top right.
4. Tap the ‘Adjust preview’ option.
5. Now tap ‘Fit’.
6. You can change the background of the additional space by tapping ‘Background’. At this time you can toggle between black and white. This is the unaesthetic part, if the background of the selected post isn’t black or white, you’re stuck with blocks on the top and bottom. I know IG is killing vibes with this.
7. Finally, tap ‘Done’ on the top right corner to save the change.

When you tap back to your feed you’ll be able to see your entire square again! If you’re hating the look right now, rest assured knowing by using the size guidelines above as you create new content your feed will be good as new in no time!

Need to Give Your Feed a Fast Refresh?

If you’re a design-junkie and just can’t stand the change I recommend taking a look in your Insights, and pulling your nine top performing posts that are at least 60 days old. Try filtering by engagement and then by reach, it can be interesting to see the difference, and make reposting decisions after viewing both!

Give the OG graphics a size refresh and schedule them to repost over the next 9 days with Meta Business Suite or in the Instagram app. Set it and forget it!

This way the immediate content (first 6 posts) people see when coming to your profile will be size-optimized and a little bit farther down (next three). Plus if you’re posting at least semi-regularly, you’ll already have size-optimized content fixing up your grid, too.

I hope this helps! Book an strategy session with me here if you’re looking for additional support with your brand’s social media strategy.

Talk soon!

Tara