Ever wondered what the ideal content length is for each social media platform?
It’s not just us then! Wonder no longer, read our handy guide to each of the major platforms.
Keep to the ideal content lengths to ensure your social media posts have the best chance of getting good engagement.
Organic posts:
Between one and 80 characters. A study by Jeff Bullas found that posts with 80 characters or fewer had 66% higher engagement.
If they’re longer, Facebook makes readers click ‘see more’ to read them. Just this one, simple step cuts engagement rates because people lose interest.
The shorter a post, the less work it is for people to understand it, too.
Adverts:
Research by AdEspresso found that adverts did best when the headline was five words, the main text above the image was 14 words, and the text below the headline, or description, was 18 words.
Videos:
The ideal length is 30 to 60 seconds. In fact, 44% of videos on Facebook in this time range were watched to the end.
Organic posts:
The best length is between 138 and 150 characters.
Although you can write captions up to 2,200 characters long, busy people will lose interest and will scroll by.
Sponsored posts:
The ideal length is up to 125 characters, meaning the post won’t be cut off by a ‘see more’.
Although Instagram posts can have up to 30 hashtags, the optimum number is between 5 and 9 and each should be less than 24 characters, research by TrackMaven has shown.
Organic and paid-for posts:
Shockingly, research shows that lengthy LinkedIn posts don’t have the sort of engagement their authors desire.
Instead, the ideal length for a post remains at 25 words or fewer.
This is because the ‘see more’ button cuts the post off at the 140 character mark.
LinkedIn articles:
A study has shown that the optimum link for a published article on LinkedIn is 1,900 to 2,000 words. They attract the largest number of likes, shares, and comments.
Videos:
The ideal length is 30 seconds. An internal LinkedIn study found videos under 30 seconds had a 200% lift in the rate of people viewing them to the end.
Organic and promoted tweets:
The ideal length is between 71 and 100 characters, according to data from Buddy Media. They get around 17% more engagement than longer tweets.
By the way, the best hashtags are one word and contain no more than six letters.
YouTube
Videos:
The best-performing 50 videos on YouTube are 2 minutes and 54 seconds, on average. So keep your videos to under three minutes to ensure they are watched to the end.
Captions:
The best length is up to 70 characters and they should contain your keywords to ensure they rank for SEO.
Descriptions:
Keep your character count under 150 and make them rich with your keywords. Don’t forget that YouTube is a search engine.
Images:
The ideal Pinterest images are 735 x 1102 pixels. Best practice for the platform us that an image should have a minimum width of 600 pixels and have a 2:3 aspect ratio.
Descriptions:
If you want re-pins, keep your descriptions to under 200 characters and make the content compelling.
Do you need help with your social media content? Call us on 01443 571375 or get in touch here.
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