Have you ever stopped in the middle of creating your online content, whether it be a social media post, blog, or other piece of online content, not sure what the proper word count should be? We’ve studied, analyzed, and researched–and put an infographic together to guide you. Here’s every correct content length for any piece of online content on the web. Feel we missed anything, or do you have something to add? Let us know in the comments! Full infographic transcription below.
An Infographic Guide to Online Content Length
Curious how long your content should be? You’re not alone. With dozens of conflicting opinions about word count flying around the web, it can be difficult to determine how much is enough on various platforms like blogs and social media. Fortunately, we have the answers.
Let’s explore the word count question here.
The Rise of Social Media: Why Your Content Matters
Social media is booming and one of the best ways to engage with the huge numbers on each platform is to ensure that the content you share there is as user-friendly as possible. Take a look at the user numbers for some of today’s hottest platforms:
- There are currently more than 2 billion active social media users in the world
- Content on Facebook earns 5 billion likes each day
- Twitter has more than 284 million users and the platform sees 500 million tweets daily
- Google+ has more than 363 million users
Online Content Lengths for All Web Platforms
Now that you know how big social media truly is, let’s take a look at what the ideal content length for all distribution channels really is.
Is Twitter really increasing its character limit from 140 to 10,000? The CEO of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, started the rumor:
— Jack (@jack) January 5, 2016
But, best practices currently state that it’s more fruitful to keep Tweets limited to 100 characters. Here’s why:
- Tweets that are 100 characters or shorter enjoy 17% more engagement than longer Tweets
- So-called “medium length” tweets (between 71-100 characters) are re-tweeted more often than large (101-characters or longer) or small (41-70 character) tweets
- Twitter is built on brevity, and 100-character tweets are easy for users to consume
While Facebook is often thought of a long-form content platform in comparison to Twitter, it may surprise you to know that the ideal character limit for a Facebook post is actually shorter than a tweet. Here’s what you need to know:
- The ideal Facebook post is 40-characters or fewer
- Facebook posts with 40-characters earn 86% more engagement than longer posts
- According to Facebook best practices, the second-best length of a Facebook post is 80 characters or less. These posts receive 66% more engagement than longer posts
Google+
Google+ is all about readability and accessibility of content, so it’s important to keep content easily digestible. Here’s what you need to know about Google+ headlines and content:
- The highest-performing Google+ headlines are 60 characters or less
- Readers only absorb the first and last three words of a headline, so headlines that are 6 words or less have the most impact
- The ideal length of Google+ body content is 200-440 characters
LinkedIn posts are designed to be short and sweet. According to BufferApp, the ideal length for a post on the platform is 25 words.
- LinkedIn posts that are around 25 words encourage the highest number of click-throughs.
- For B2B companies, the ideal word length for a LinkedIn post can vary between 16-25 words.
- For B2C companies on LinkedIn, the ideal word length for a post is between 21-25 words.
Since Instagram isn’t focused on text-based content, but rather great visuals: there are currently no solid “best practices” for word count. You can, however, follow these tips for best results from your Instagram posts.
- Use creative #hashtags to promote interaction with your established network. Consider using the Instagram Explorer page to learn more about trending hashtags that can enhance your brand. Up to 15 hashtags per post is an average amount. Always be relatable with your hashtags to what your visual topic is about.
- If you’re sharing an Instagram photo on Twitter or Facebook, be sure to lessen and streamline your hashtags. Photos with too many hashtags will look out of place on these networks. Some brands drop the hashtags in an Instagram follow-up comment if they’re streamlining.
- Tell your brand story through captions. This offers context for your image and helps followers connect with your content.
When it comes to Pinterest descriptions, keeping them within the correct character-count range can enhance their performance hugely.
- 200-character descriptions earn the most re-pins
- Pins that feature CTAs earn 80% more engagement than those that don’t
- Research has found that pins with an image height 800 pixels or greater earn significantly more re-pins than those with smaller images
Blog Posts
Rule of thumb: blog posts are the place where informative, guide-style, long-form content can shine.
- Buffer found that the ideal reading length of a blog post is 7 minutes. This translates to roughly 1,600 words
- As a general rule, longer blogs are more likely to provide quality markers for search engines, which allows them to rank higher
- Blog posts that are longer than 1,500 words receive an average of 68% more tweets and 23% more Facebook likes than shorter posts.
- Most web pages that sit in the top 10 SERP positions for any given keyword have at least 2,000 words
- Eight-word or longer search queries have risen by 34,000%, which means that content targeting long-tail keywords will perform better today.
5 Key Best Practices for Social Media Posts
No matter where you’re posting content, there are several rules you should always follow:
1. Be helpful. Readers want helpful content. It matters less if your content is 80 or 800 characters and much, much more that it’s helpful and well-written.
2. Don’t blab. As a general rule, concise is better. If you can get a point across in 1,000 words, you shouldn’t be stuffing a 2,000-word post with empty fillers just to meet word count. This will cost you readers and damage the quality of your content.
3. Add visuals. Posts with visuals earn 94% more views than text-only posts. By including high-quality infographics, memes, stock photos, or screenshots in your content, you can increase engagement hugely.
4. Craft compelling CTAs. Something as simple as adding CTAs to your social media content can create a huge shift in your conversions and rankings. By telling your readers exactly what you want them to do, you stand a better chance of them actually doing it.
5. Engage. A social media post is only as valuable as the level to which you engage with it. This means responding to comments, speaking directly with followers, and posting additional content as needed to keep the conversation going.
Reference List
QuickSprout: http://buff.ly/23IRoP8
Buffer: http://buff.ly/1SsSpHv
Qunitly: http://buff.ly/23ISYQX
Dan Zarella: http://buff.ly/1QcuTIq
Buffer: http://buff.ly/2096rgo
HubSpot: http://buff.ly/1PhhDlV
Jeff Bullas: http://buff.ly/1PhigvY