Social media is the place to be this season — or we think, any season — to connect with your community. Every day, See.Spark.Go’s team of social media specialists explores innovative ways to post, stream, create, connect and respond using the diverse, ever-changing and intentional uses of each platform. We may or may not hit a few speed bumps along the way. However, these obstacles provide helpful insight once we navigate through them.

Basically, we do it all for you. Learn 10 things we tried and failed so you don’t have to.

1. Instagram doesn’t support GIFs.
Crazy, right? What are all those moving images I see? GIF files are not supported on Instagram. If you have created a motion graphic, make sure to convert it to an MP4. When posting as an in-feed post, Instagram will automatically replay your video, giving it the appearance of a GIF in your feed.

Facebook supports a variety of photo and video formats (find the full list here).

2. Make sure to save your IG Live to your camera roll… or else.
After your Live broadcast ends, tap Save in the upper right corner immediately. It might take a minute for a live video to save to your camera roll, especially for longer videos. Also, you’ll only be able to save video — not comments, likes or any interactions, and your Live video will no longer be available within the Instagram app. Even if you don’t have a use for it now, you might. Better SAVE, than sorry.

3. If your image resolution is less than 1080 x 1920, it might show up blurry on your Instagram feed.
To ensure that all of the beautiful content you’re posting is fully appreciated on social media, make sure that your image resolution and dimensions are correct per platform. We LOVE our friends at Sprout Social (s/o to Becca, the best customer support specialist around) and they have a great guide we use all.the.time to stay up-to-date in this ever-changing space. Avoid using screenshots; cropping and downsizing the original image to the preferred dimensions will always work better.

4. You can’t go Live on Facebook with a scheduled video from a mobile device.
Did you know that you can schedule a Facebook Live video ahead of time? Facebook’s Business Manager Publishing Tools allows you to set up your video, title and caption ahead of time and schedule it for the broadcast date and time of your choosing. So helpful, right? With this being said, whenever you do schedule a Facebook Live, remember that when the time comes, you can only go live and stream the video from desktop instead of a mobile device.

5. Cropping a video on IGTV isn’t the same as filming it vertically.
The official aspect ratio for IGTV, along with IG stories and the Facebook Feed is 9:16. This means your video should be a ratio of 1080 x 1920 pixels. To be extra safe when repurposing a horizontal video used on other platforms for IGTV, shoot wide in general to ensure you have room to crop down to the right size.

6. You can’t use YouTube end cards on “Made for Kids” videos.
YouTube recently made this change because of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. YouTube is trying to start limiting the data it collects on children viewers, which means that content creators using the platform to target a younger audience won’t be able to take advantage of end cards.

7. You can’t go Live on Facebook and Instagram at the same time from the same device.
Even though Instagram Live and Facebook Live are both owned by Facebook, they are two different live video streaming platforms with different features. While you’re planning innovative ways to connect during this season through live streams, prepare to go live on both platforms on different devices or at different times.

8. Sharing an Instagram Story to Facebook Stories doesn’t necessarily mean it will look the same on both platforms.

And while we’re at it, when you share an Instagram Story to Facebook Stories, it works — kind of, sometimes. Features such as quizzes, polls, countdowns and more don’t sync with the Facebook platform in the same way. We recommend posting stories natively within their respective applications for the best use of platform tools.

9. Don’t ignore the importance of optimal video orientation per platform.

If you’re filming content for social, know the channel or channels where you are going to want to leverage it and film accordingly! If you have the time and resources, it’s always best to create different versions of the videos for different channels post-filming but you can always choose the one that you think is the highest priority (i.e., if your highest views are on Stories, film vertically) and make it work for the others.

10. Your Facebook ad could be rejected if it uses keywords that relate to an issue of “national importance.”
Facebook ads that share information about public health, religion, sustainability or civic issues take longer to be approved because new Facebook restrictions can flag these for further review, delaying your ad launch. That means any of your ads or promoted posts featuring relevant COVID-19 content could take a bit longer, as well as all sorts of other keywords that you can learn about here.

We hope we’ve saved you a swing and a miss or helped you find a working solution to the social media barriers you’ve run into. In order to ease your social media management even more, our team has created 9 graphics and captions that you can download for FREE and use on your social media. They are written and designed to engage audiences working and staying at home in this COVID-19 season.

Download the free 9-grid of social media images and captions here and tell us how you like them on Instagram @SeeSparkGo.