Do you know that there is an acceptable length for every type of content you make to optimize its readability and its SEO ranking?
Yes, there is a reasonable length for every type of content available and it is wise to follow them in order for you to attract as many readers as possible.
The lengths vary from social media networks to target audience. Facebook has no character limit yet the best content length for it is just around 40 characters while Twitter which decided to stick with 280 limit character has an ideal content length of up to 100 characters only.
The purpose of content is to be able to promote your business or brand in all available channels across social media without spending a lot of money for promoting your business. Knowing the criteria or limitations when making content saves you time, money and effort.
Optimal Length for Your Social Content
Twitter tweet – 71 to 100 characters only
Twitter has a 280 character limit now. It leaves space for your URL and for re-tweets and quotes. But according to Buddy Media, tweets with lengths lower than 100 characters are 17% more likely to engage readers over tweets with more than 100 characters.
No one is more authorized to tell you what content length works best for your tweets except Twitter itself. Both Buddy Media and Track Social study on 100 well-known brands on Twitter found out that tweets with 71-100 characters are shared or re-tweeted more.
These tweets are the medium length which gives room for comments from followers who would be sharing the tweets.
Facebook post- 40 characters only
Facebook may not have imposed a character limit like Twitter but posts with 40 characters only have 86% higher engagement rate than longer Facebook posts.
On Facebook, posts with image perform 120% better than posts with plain texts only but in order for text posts to generate better engagement rate, it has to be about 40 characters long only.
Jeff Bullas did a study of retail brands on Facebook and based on likes and comments, 40 character posts have the highest engagement activity.
Another study conducted by BlitzLocal on 120 billion Facebook impressions have validated that the longer the post, the less engagement activity it gets. Facebook it seems love brevity.
Google+- 60 characters only
Ideally, your Google+ headline must be compelling enough to entice your readers to read through your content simply by just looking at your headline.
A headline should be on one line only as that’s the breaking point for Google+. If a longer headline cannot be avoided, then your first sentence must be very interesting to urge readers to continue reading your Google+ post.
You might ask what the rationale is behind the need for a killer first sentence. This is because Google+ is created in such a way that readers will only get to see the first 3 lines of the entire post before the Read More button becomes visible.
Optimal Length for Blog Posts
LinkedIn post-25 words
The limit on words would actually depend on your target audience. For the B2B audience, it is between 16-25 words while B2C is between 21-25 words. This is based on a Compendium study on 200 companies that focused on the clicks in checking for the ideal length of the headline.
Blog post headline- 6 words
Based on a 2009 usability testing conducted by Jakob Nielsen, only the first 11 characters of a headline are consumed by readers. Why 6 words? An average person only sees the first and last 3 words of a headline.
Blog post- 1600 words which is equivalent to 7 minutes
Medium based their study on the time or attention provided to the article and not on the number of clicks the blog post has received.
Posts with 1600 words receive higher engagement hence it has become the limit. An article with only 1000 words is considered acceptable providing that the blog post is full of images.
Other studies would dispute the results of Medium’s statistical research; Moz’s result for their own website produced better engagement for posts longer than 7 minutes. Similarly, the paragraphs on your post should consist of only 40-55 characters for easier readability.
Opening paragraphs with larger fonts than the rest make it easy for the readers to focus and read the blog post. To make your blog post optimized for search engines, including 6 hashtags without special characters.
Optimal Length for Videos
YouTube video- 3 minutes length only
Based on the top 50 videos on YouTube, the most popular have an average length of 2:50. Other studies reveal that a maximum length of 3:30 is still acceptable.
Podcast video- 22 minutes length only
An average listener of Podcast normally spends about 22 minutes for every video. Students lose interest in the video once they hit the 15-20-minute mark.
Other Content Limits
SlideShare Presentation- 61 slides
An in-depth SlideShare presentation following proper guidelines has about 61 slides. On average, that’s about 6 minutes worth of presentation.
Pinterest Image – 735 x 1102px
Pins should be 735 x 1102px. In your feeds, the pins would have the size of 235 px. The aspect ratio could either be 1:3.5 or 2:3 with a minimum width of 600. If your width is at 800 px, your length could either be 2800 px or 1200 px to satisfy Pinterest’s aspect ratio (relationship of an image’s height to its width).
Wrapping it Up
So what’s the purpose of content limit? This can be attributed more to search engine optimization more than anything else as the content lengths were determined based on in-depth studies conducted on the different social platforms. Search engine rankings and readability are the reasons why it is important for you to know what the acceptable content limits are for every network.
Remember, your aim here is to get more followers and customers to attain higher sales conversions in order for your business to grow and prosper. The more followers you have, the better your chances are for converting sales.
Anil Agarwal says
Great post Adam,
I don’t think I’ve read about this elsewhere before, even though I know that a lot of people have written about it before on the internet, but this is the first time I’m taken my time to read it.
Funny enough, many people do not know about this social media content length. And it’s good the way you covered it for better understanding.
Thanks for sharing.
SB says
Yoast has to work on different aspect like when i put long tail keyword that contains stop word yoast gives warning for stop word and long tail keyword is efficient for conversion. That moment of time i get confuse.. and second, i find readability of my blog is good and then the moment is put picture..readability becomes needs improvement that time also confuse what to do Thos who are old in blogging they manage..but we people get lot many confusion
Vladimir says
Sorry, but some of these things don’t make much sense. You should create shorter posts on Facebook and G+ than on Twitter, even though the latter is actually designed for short, brief messages? Also, I think 3 minutes on YouTube are not enough for more than to say hello and goodbye.
Adam says
Thank for your input Vladimir, yes you’re right it sounds strange and it’s quite counter-intuitive. However people are quite busy or better say bored nowadays so they don’t really want to spend too much time on any one thing unless it’s super interesting for them. And as most things people post aren’t, the only way to make sure they read/view everything is to keep it super short.
Simeon says
Thank you guys for sharing these details. To be honest I don’t pay attention to this stuff when creating my content, but I decided now to put my social media game on the next level and will try to follow recommended length.
Ella says
Even tho now in 2020 your Facebook post can be up to 63,206 characters long, your Facebook posts should be somewhere between 40 and 50 characters.
Anya Stevens says
Interesting information, thank you Jarvee team. These can be useful if you are a beginner on some social network or don’t know how your potential audience behaves. After some time, when you see learn about your followers and how they “breathe” you will be able to see based on your experience and previous posts what type of posts were their favorite and if they had more or less characters.
Takuma Nieto says
Very much appreciate your “investigation” about this subject. Very small number of social media users think about this. Thank you for taking care about your clients and for making them better and better in their business and for sharing these great tips and informations.
Harrison Lars says
Now, after reading this article, I saw that I was making so many mistakes. Thank you for your expertise and your know-how!
Hannah Huston says
Who would ever say that the best performing post on Facebook is the one with around 40 characters (only). Science and researching is the key of every lock, thank You so much for this article.