Social Media: What’s the Ideal Length for Contents and Posts?

Over 2.7 billion monthly active Facebook users[1].

Over 1 billion monthly active Instagram users[2].

Over 2 billion logged-in users each month[3].

Over 330 million monthly active Twitter users[4].

Over 400 million monthly active Pinterest users[5].

Whether you’re a fitness coach, a podcaster, a business coach – or whatever type of business you have – you have to be on social media.

With billions of people using social media platforms, it has become the most important and influential virtual space today. Now, social media platforms aren’t just used for social networking, but is also a great way of digitally advertising your brand and your services or products.

However, simply posting long and rambling content or technical descriptions of your products or services aren’t enough. Moreover, posting overly long posts may do you more harm than good.

When posting on social media, getting the right length is very important.

Ideal Content Sizes and Lengths on Social Media

So, what’s the ideal length of posts on social media?

Here’s what the experts say:

• Facebook

A study from Jeff Bullas found that FB posts with 80 characters (or less) get 88% more engagement[6].

Further, AdEspresso found that Facebook ads did best when contents are kept short and concise. Every Facebook ad requires three types of content – a headline, main text, and description. Here’s the ideal length for each[7]:

o  Headline: 5 words

o  Main Text: 14 words

o  Description: 18 words

• Twitter

For years, Twitter only allowed users to posts up to 140 characters per Tweet. But in 2017, Twitter decided to double that number, allowing users to post up to 280 characters per Tweet. However, just because you can use all 280 characters doesn’t mean that you should.

If you’re looking to grab someone’s attention, keep your tweet to somewhere between 71 – to 100 characters. According to Buddy Media, tweets with 100 characters (or less) obtain 17% higher engagement rates compared to longer tweets[8].

• Instagram

Unlike Facebook and Twitter, Instagram is primarily intended for visual content. However, the right combination of captions will provide some context to your posts, and promote engagement.