How long should your social media captions be? While we know how long social media captions are allowed to be, writing within one or two words of the limit isn’t the same thing as making the most of your caption character count.
What Does Character Count Mean?
Keep in mind; character counts include letters, numbers, emojis, punctuation, and spaces.
Note: These character limits are for post captions only. This doesn’t apply to titles, headers, meta descriptions, alt text, and additional features respective to some platforms.
Ideal Facebook Character Count
While a Facebook post can be up to 63,206 characters in length (about the size of a standard blog post), the best length for a post – to drive user engagement – is between 40 and 60 characters.
This ideal length speaks to two things:
- Users rarely stop to read full posts, especially if the post is from a person or entity outside of their direct friend/family group. As a brand, you can speak to your target audience on Facebook, but you have to keep it simple and straight to the point if you expect users to follow through.
- This length accounts for the post cut-off – the point at which a post turns into ellipses and a user has to commit to clicking on “see more” to get the full story. Most users are interested in scrolling through their feeds. If they have to do extra work to see the rest of your post, you run the high risk of losing their attention altogether.
How to Make the Most of Your Facebook Character Count
Finalize your thought/statement in 40-60 characters. Keeping your Facebook post brief and to the point will increase your likelihood of engagement. Your Facebook caption can include a call to action. When done effectively, you can redirect a user to your brand’s Facebook page or website, thus converting them into a warm lead.
Ideal Instagram Character Count
You can’t create an Instagram post without a photo or video, which speaks to the platform’s focus on visual content over text. With that being said, you still want to use the post caption space to optimize your content and increase your discoverability within Instagram.
The ideal length for an Instagram caption is around 125 characters. Users are going to focus more on the visual element of your post, so make sure the point you’re trying to get across comes through there. Your caption should support your image or video with a quick-to-grasp key takeaway.
How to Make the Most of Your Instagram Character Count
Instagram’s discover page has its own algorithm, which has started to transform it into a search engine. In the same way that website SEO optimizes your brand’s online presence, smart “Instagram SEO” can help position your brand for increased discoverability within the platform.
Incorporate a keyword into your caption and hashtags that speaks to your target audience. In your hashtags specifically, choose 4-9 hashtags and aim for longer hashtag character counts. More “complex” hashtags have specific targets and less traffic (increasing your chances of standing out for that tag).
Ideal TikTok Character Count
Similar to Instagram, TikTok is a visual priority platform. The way text is positioned within the app reinforces its role as a secondary support to video content.
With that being said, the TikTok algorithm has started to favor categorizable content. That means content the algorithm can read and apply a keyword to is more likely to land on users’ “for you” page than uncategorized content. The only way to optimize your TikTok content is with text.
How to Make the Most of Your TikTok Character Count
In addition to selecting 3-5 keywords/phrases as text on screen, you’ll want to factor some of those same keywords into your caption and hashtags (ideally up to 100 characters in length). Choose a strategic mix of generalized and specific hashtags that target your brand’s audience based on their interests and needs.
Ideal Twitter Character Count
Even though Twitter is already the “short and sweet” platform – with character limits of 280 – the ideal caption length is even shorter. It’s best to keep your Twitter captions between 70-100 characters in length.
How to Make the Most of Your Twitter Character Count
Twitter captions are notorious for being littered with tagged users and hashtag entries. Captions that try to do too much are less likely to be engaged with, while captions that get straight to the point, or deliver a key hook, are more likely to catch a user’s eye.
Keep your Twitter caption simple: focus on making the point you want to make, limit any integrated hashtags to single words so that readers don’t get tripped up as they scan your text, and consider tagging relevant users in a reply to your tweet instead of in the primary tweet itself.
Ideal LinkedIn Character Count
A user’s LinkedIn presence is developed around their profile, which functions as either an online resume or business blog. These primary functions make LinkedIn an inherently text focused platform.
LinkedIn allows for two types of organic posts: status updates and LinkedIn publishing posts. Publishing posts allow users to post full-length blog posts and articles to the platform, which is why LinkedIn functions as both a social network and an informational resource.
The ideal length for a LinkedIn status update is between 100-140 characters (with the post preview cutting off at 140 characters). A LinkedIn publishing post can be around 120,000 characters long, with the ideal length being up to 2,000 words to capture and maintain a reader’s attention.
How to Make the Most of Your LinkedIn Character Count
For a status update, make your point in 140 characters or less so that users can fully engage with your content and you decrease the risk of losing their attention.
For LinkedIn publishing posts, make sure you use SEO to increase your post’s discoverability within LinkedIn and online at large. As a platform full of professionals, you’ll want to make sure your topics are relevant, focused, and provide value with minimal errors.
Character Count for Social Media: Short & Sweet
Across the board, the general theme for social media character counts is to keep your captions short and to the point. At large, social media caters to a desire for instant gratification, making speedy delivery a key element to running a successful post or ad.
Work with Sway Group
Sway Group is a full-service influencer marketing agency, comprised of social media and digital advertising experts. If you want to ensure your brand won’t fall through the cracks online and on social media, then you should partner with Sway Group.
In addition to helping brands reach their target consumers through effective influencer collaborations, Sway Group knows how to optimize, track, and report oEvery social media platform has its set character count/limit for post captions. But, did you know that character limits aren’t always the same as the ideal length for a post? If you’re interested in optimizing your social media captions for visibility and readability, then you’re in the right place.
Below we’ve created a quick guide to caption character counts: the limits for each platform, what ideal caption lengths are, and tips for optimizing your social media captions.
What Are the Character Limits for Post Captions on Social Media?
- Facebook Character Count: 63,206 characters
- Instagram Character Count: 2,200 characters
- TikTok Character Count: 2,200 characters
- Twitter Character Count: 280 characters
- LinkedIn Character Count: 700 characters
n content performance to guarantee your brand increases its reach online and on social media.
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