What is the Ideal Length of a Social Media Post?
Social Media
Not everything on the web is created equal. Every piece of a company’s online content, from a social media post or a blog post, all the way down to the website domain, has an ideal length or character count. In order for these pieces to work hard to convey the right marketing message, marketers must know the optimal lengths for all of the pieces. Thanks to a handy infographic by Buffer and SumAll, we have the answers! Here are the magic numbers to keep the different pieces of your online marketing working for you:
Even though Twitter has a character maximum of 140 characters, it’s better not to use all of them! Tweets that are more direct and are less than 100 characters see a 17% higher engagement rate.
Facebook may give you space to write, and write, and write, the ideal length for Facebook posts is actually less than Twitter! Facebook posts that receive 86% more engagement are posts that around 40 characters in length.
Google+
Although Google+ is a very content-driven social platform, the ideal length for posts is 60 characters or less. Bonus, if the article or post can be introduced in one lone gripping headline, than it’ll do a better job at attracting readers.
Email Subject Line
Get emails open by aiming for 28 – 39 characters for the subject line. Subject lines that fall in that range get and average open rate of 12.2% and 4% click rate.
Whether you are trying to reach customers or businesses on this professional network, it’s recommended to keep posts at around 25 words to get the most shares.
Blog Headlines
Blog headlines are important for capturing readers’ attention. Rather than worrying too much on length, make sure to make every word count. Great headlines can be a short as 6 words long and still be highly engaging.
Blog Posts
Blog posts can be informative, relevant, and helpful without being too lengthy. Readers typically will take only a few minutes to read a blog post. Blog articles that take between 3 – 6 minutes to read actually get read!
YouTube
Finally, we can’t forget about YouTube! The average length of the top 50 videos with the most shares, views, and comments is 3 minutes.
Take a look at the full visual below for the ideal length on just about everything online:
Credit: Buffer