Ideal Social Media Post Length: Guidelines for Each Platform

You are busy creating quality content and practicing your social media strategy. You don’t have time to exhaustively list the ideal social media post lengths for every single platform.

So we made it for you. (Please hold your applause.)

This isn’t just a list of how long social media posts can be: it’s a list of the best social media post lengths to get the most attention.

If you want more likes, shares, video views, and comments (what monster doesn’t?!), it’s important to determine the length of your post.

Do you write too much in your social media posts? Too few? Are your videos too long or not long enough? Check out our curated study of the ideal character count for social media posts (not to be confused with character limits) and other content types:

• facebook
• Twitter
• Instagram
• tik tak
• LinkedIn
• YouTube
• pinterest
• Snapchat

TLDR: Optimize the length of your content and you are more likely to attract and convert your audience. Let’s go to.

Ideal social media post length

Ideal Facebook Post Length

While you have enough space to create a short novel on FB, the truth is that shorter posts usually get more likes, comments, and shares.

People like it when the message is said quickly and concisely. This is satisfactory.

Length of organic messages: from 1 to 80 characters.

We’ve scoured the world wide web for research, and the most recent study was back in 2016… an eternity in the years of social media. But that’s all we need to work with, so this is the best starting point we have:

In 2016, BuzzSumo analyzed over 800 million Facebook posts. According to their findings, posts under 50 characters “were more engaging than long posts”. According to another, more accurate study by Jeff Bullas, posts with 80 characters or less get 66% more engagement.

There are a couple of reasons for this…

Barrier to Entry: Facebook cuts longer messages with ellipsis, forcing users to click “Read More”to expand the text and read the entire message.

This extra step seems insignificant, but it will reduce engagement. Every time you ask an audience to act, a percentage of people lose interest.

Barrier to Comprehension: The longer a person reads, the more his brain has to work to process the information. Content that requires less effort to consume and understand will have a higher engagement rate.

Length of paid messages: from 5 to 19 words.

Every Facebook ad needs three types of content: title, ad text, and link description.

After analyzing 752,626 Facebook ads back in 2018, AdEspresso found that ads perform best when the text in each element is clear and concise. According to the data, the ideal length for:

• The headline, the first text people read, is 5 words long.
• The ad text that appears above the ad is 19 words long.
• The link description that appears below the title is 13 words long.

Here is a great concise example from AirBnb. There are no extra words here.

Bottom line: Whether the post is organic or paid, brevity seems to drive engagement.

Take advantage of this by keeping your ad text short: don’t use two words when one is enough. And be clear: omit adverbs, jargon, and passive voice in your text.

Learn more tips for writing social media ads.

Video length: 30 to 60 seconds.

Of course, you can upload a 240 minute video to Facebook… but will anyone watch the entire video? In the case of video, one of the main indicators of success is how long people watch the video, also known as the video retention rate.

For viral content, Facebook recommends videos under one minute or stories under 20 seconds.

That being said, if you’re hoping to qualify for in-stream ads, you can stick around a bit longer – for that, the video needs to be over three minutes long.

Facebook also recommends videos longer than three minutes for episodic series, live streams, or story development.

Careful! Do not exceed the limit:

Ideal tweet length

So, how many characters are in a tweet? In 2017, Twitter doubled the character limit on tweets from 140 to 280 to make it easier to write messages on the platform.

But, it’s worth repeating, just because you have twice the room doesn’t mean people want to see you use it.

Length of organic and promoted tweets: 71 – 100 characters

Whether you advertise or not, Bud d y Media data shows that tweets under 100 characters get 17% more engagement on average than longer tweets.

This is partly because short tweets are easier to read and understand.

There is a way to bypass the word limit on Twitter:

Warby Parker cleverly combined a long list of short tweets to get the best of both worlds, creating a long thread for the longest day of the year: fast and daring content delivered in bulk.

Long day, long twitter thread

— Warby Parker (@WarbyParker) June 21, 2022

The Track Social study confirms these findings:

Twitter hashtag length: 6 characters

“The best hashtags consist of one word or several letters,” writes Vanessa Doctor of Hashtags.org. “Twitter experts recommend that the keyword should not exceed 6 characters.”

Again, this length depends on the understanding of the reader, especially since hashtags do not support spaces.

Careful! Do not exceed the limit:

Ideal TikTok Video Length

People have downloaded TikTok over 3 billion times, which means you have a lot of short attention spans in the world to calm down.

Of course, the short video app recently increased the maximum video length to 10 minutes. But just because you can do something doesn’t necessarily mean you should. TikTok thrives on brevity.

Organic TikTok video length: 7 to 15 seconds.

To hook the viewer and keep their attention, aim for a 15-second video.

The more people who watch and like your video, the more likely you are to appear on someone else’s “For You”page, so it’s important to really kick it out of the park. (To learn more about placating TikTok’s great algorithm, click here.)

That being said, you can still try the 7 second TikTok challenge. When our social team tried it, their video got half a million likes – not bad at all.

@hootsuite

try this hack yourself ??

♬ original sound — edaheransgingerpub3s ??

TikTok Ad Length: 21 to 24 seconds.

For maximum ad effectiveness, TikTok recommends 21-34 seconds.

But of course, length isn’t everything: content and quality formatting also matter. We’ve got a rundown of everything you need to be a TikTok ad master right here.

Careful! Do not exceed the limit:

Ideal LinkedIn Post Length

LinkedIn is used by over 810 million professionals. And as the platform’s user base grows, it becomes increasingly difficult to gain organic attention. Marketers must constantly optimize their messages in terms of quality, timing and, of course, length.

Length of organic and paid updates: 25 words

Research on this topic hasn’t been done that long, but Hootsuite thinks that, as with all other types of social updates, LinkedIn updates are best kept short.

The character limit on a LinkedIn post before the “Read More”button is 140. Your post will be cut off at the 140 character mark – just like the Shopify ad did here. As a general rule, we stick to 25 words or less.

The volume of articles: from 1900 to 2000 words.

Paul Shapiro, founder of Search Wilderness, analyzed over 3,000 of the most successful posts on the LinkedIn publishing platform. These posts received an average of 42,505 views, 567 comments, and 138,841 likes.

He found that articles with more words performed better.

“Posts between 1,900 and 2,000 words work best,” writes Shapiro. “[They] get the most views on posts, likes on LinkedIn, comments on LinkedIn, and shares on LinkedIn.”

Shapiro also learned that the ideal character limit for LinkedIn titles is between 40 and 49 characters. Headlines in this range received the most views on posts overall.

Video length: 30 seconds

In 2017, LinkedIn gave its users the ability to upload videos that automatically play in their followers’ feeds. Unlike other platforms, LinkedIn also provides access to video data (such as companies and viewer jobs), making it a valuable resource for marketers.

According to LinkedIn, the most successful video ads are less than 15 seconds long. But the length can vary when it comes to native LinkedIn video.

LinkedIn recommends not exceeding the video length for brand awareness and review.

Meanwhile, videos that match the marketing goals of the top of the funnel should be 30-90 seconds long.

Interested in LinkedIn video best practices? We got you.

Careful! Do not exceed the limit:

Ideal Instagram Post Length

Unlike Facebook and Twitter, Instagram was based on visual content. The platform was created to showcase compelling images and videos, but the right mix of words will drive engagement on any post.

Engagement is, of course, critical to maximizing your content’s reach, as the Instagram algorithm places the posts with the most likes and comments at the top of your followers’ feeds.

The length of a typical Instagram post caption is between 138 and 150 characters.

A successful Instagram caption adds context, showcases your brand personality, entertains your audience, and drives your followers to action.

The caption limit on Instagram is 2200 characters. But you only need a fraction of that limit to move the arrow (as our very scientific caption length experiment can confirm).

Most people skim through their feed quickly, so it makes sense to keep captions clear, concise, and expressive.

Short text is easy to understand. It also doesn’t get cut off by ellipsis. Need written support? Find 264 creative Instagram captions to get started right here.

Sponsored Instagram post caption length: 125 characters maximum.

Instagram recommends that sponsored post captions be limited to 125 characters.

Again, this length provides readability and ensures that the text is not cut off.

Looking for more inspiration? Here are 53 examples of amazing Instagram ads.

Instagram video length: 15 seconds.

Most people will be watching your Instagram video (regular or promotional) on their phones, so it’s important to follow the mobile video length guidelines if you want to keep the viewer’s attention.

This means that the video must be no longer than 15 seconds. Short! And! Sweet!

For more Instagram advertising guidelines, click here.

Instagram hashtags: 3-5 per post less than 24 characters each.

Instagram posts can have up to 30 hashtags, so it’s tempting to add as many as possible to each caption. As a marketer, fight this desire. Using more hashtags will not necessarily lead to more visibility.

In fact, Instagram recently showed that 3-5 hashtags will actually get you the best results, and our own little experiment confirmed this.

Source: @creators

Of course, choosing the right hashtags is a different story. Our guide to Instagram hashtags will walk you through the options.

Instagram Stories duration: 7 to 15 seconds.

Instagram parent company Meta notes that people consume Stories much faster than other content, so it’s important to get their attention right away.

You really only have 15 seconds to work with – that’s the maximum length of an Instagram story – so get to work.

Instagram video length: 7 to 15 seconds.

While cutscenes can be much longer than stories—up to a minute for most people and 90 seconds for select beta testers—the same short attention span principle applies here. Get to the point quickly and be brief.

Learn more about creating compelling videos here.

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Careful! Do not exceed the limit:

Ideal YouTube Post Length

After all, YouTube is a search engine, which means it relies on text to organize and rank the nearly 500 hours of videos that are uploaded to its servers every minute.

So, in addition to optimizing video length, marketers need to pre-load their content title and description with relevant keywords, which means keeping track of the character count.

YouTube video length: 7 to 15 minutes.

Whether you watch videos on YouTube or elsewhere, one of the most important KPIs is retention.

How long do people actually watch? Are viewers finishing your videos at a high rate? If so, you are doing something right.

Statista reports an average video length of 11.7 minutes, and Social Media Examiner considers this ideal, writing that videos between 7 and 15 minutes have the best performance.

Here, for example, nine minutes. Oh! Oh!

Of course, a successful Youtube strategy is about more than just getting the length of your video right. Here’s everything you need to know about creating great Youtube content for your business.

YouTube title length: 70 characters.

The most important SEO factor to consider for Youtube is the title of your video.

Include relevant keywords to rank high on Google and YouTube searches and at the same time be compelling enough to drive clicks and views.

This is a difficult task! And, PS, it needs to be pretty carefully crafted: Influencer Marketing Hub suggests limiting it to a maximum of 70 characters so it doesn’t get cut off.

YouTube description length: 157 characters.

The first 100-150 characters will show up before your video, so optimize this piece of text by adding a detailed description and lots of intriguing keywords.

Sharpen your caption writing skills with our Youtube caption guide.

Careful! Do not exceed the limit:

Ideal size and length for Pinterest posts

On Pinterest, image size matters. As is the length of your description.

Pinterest images: 1000 X 1500 pixels.

According to Pinterest’s guidelines, images on the platform should have an aspect ratio of 2:3, which is the ratio of the height and width of the image.

Description length: 200 characters

Research shows that descriptions with around 200 characters get the most repins. (For more juicy numbers, check out our guide to must-have Pinterest stats here.)

Your Pinterest caption is your chance to add context, convince, and sell. This is your chance to tell a story and evoke emotion, to make a promise. The description is your chance to convince.

A well-written description is also an opportunity to get discovered, so be sure to brush up on your Pinterest SEO best practices.

Careful! Do not exceed the limit:

Ideal length for Snapchat videos and captions

Given how brief the restrictions on Snapchat captions and videos are, it’s nearly impossible to hold out for too long.

To really succeed on this platform, what matters is what you post, not how long that content is played. Our guide to effective Snapchat advertising is a useful tool whether you’re creating marketing or editorial content.

Ideal Snapchat story length: 15 seconds.

Snapchat Story videos can be up to 60 seconds long, but it’s rare for these (relatively) long pieces of content to have high engagement.

makes a major impact

New to Snapchat? Here is our guide to Snapchat for business for beginners.

The ideal caption length for a Snapchat video is 50 characters.

Image captions can be up to 80 characters long, but they’re really secondary to the visual content, so don’t go too hard to make the most of it.

Infographic: Ideal Social Media Post Length

And now to you.

This article is about best practices, but at the end of the day, every social account is a unique beast… and you know (or can learn to know!) the best.

Time and experimentation will show what resonates best with your specific followers and users. Try running A/B tests to see if the number of characters suggested in this guide is right for you.