Crafting the perfect Tweet, optimizing your Instagram posts or brainstorming copy for Facebook ads may all seem like totally different tasks. But they all have one thing in common – they each have a platform-specific character limit. More importantly, you need to know the ideal social media post lengths. This could improve your chances of getting people to read or engage with your posts.

To make it easier, here is a detailed guide on social media character limits and ideal social media post lengths.

 

Facebook

Facebook ads character count

Facebook generally has the same character limit across all ad types, with the exception of carousel ads and in-stream video ads.

 

  • Headline – 40 characters
  • Body text – 125 characters
  • Link descriptions – 30 characters (20 for carousel ads and in-stream video ads)

 

Facebook posts character count

Facebook is the perfect place to share long-form content, with the platform allowing up to 63,206 characters in regular posts. This gives you ample space to tell a detailed story or explain something in-depth.

 

Ideal Facebook post length

 

But just because you can post a lengthy status update on Facebook doesn’t mean you should. In fact, short posts tend to perform better even on Facebook.

 

According to a BuzzSumo analysis, the ideal Facebook post length is around 50 characters (or fewer), which tends to get the most engagement.

 

Facebook maximum character limits

Besides posts and ads, Facebook also has character limits for usernames, Page descriptions and comments:

 

  • Username character limit – at least 5 characters and up to 50 characters
  • Page description – 255 Characters
  • Facebook comments – 8,000 Characters

 

Instagram

Instagram ads character limit

The character limit for Instagram ads is similar to that of Facebook.

 

  • Headline – 40 characters
  • Body text – 125 characters
  • Link descriptions – 30 characters

 

Instagram captions character count

The Instagram caption limit is 2,200 characters. So there’s sufficient space to add context to your posts through your captions. It’s also important to note that Instagram captions are truncated at 125 characters.

 

Ideal Instagram caption length

 

While 2,200 characters is abundant caption real estate, huge blocks of text may look messy and distract people from the main focus of the post, i.e., your photo or video. The ideal length is 1-50 characters, as Quintly found that these tend to drive more interactions in an analysis of 5.9 million posts.

 

Maximum Instagram character limits

Instagram also sets a limit on how long your bio and username can be:

 

  • Instagram bio character limit – 150 characters
  • Instagram username character limit – 30 characters

Twitter

Tweet character count

Within the last few years, Twitter increased Tweet character counts from 140 to 280 characters.

 

Ideal Tweet length

 

Unlike with other social platforms, longer posts tend to perform better on Twitter, according to reports from Sotrender and the Chicago Tribune. The sweet spot is between 240 and 259 characters, which tend to get the most likes, replies, Retweets, impressions and link clicks on average.

 

Twitter maximum character limits

Twitter also puts a cap on how long your DMs, profile name, bio and handle can be:

 

  • DMs – 10,000 characters
  • Twitter handle – 15 characters
  • Profile name – 50 characters
  • Bio – 160 characters

 

LinkedIn maximum character limits

LinkedIn offers plenty of areas for users to enter text, with each having its own character limit. Here’s a quick look at some of them:

 

  • First name – 20 characters
  • Last name – 40 characters
  • Status update (personal profile) – 1,300 characters
  • About us/Summary – 2,000 characters
  • Company Page name – 100 characters
  • Company update – 700 characters
  • Company leaders headline – 150 characters
  • Company leaders description – 150 characters
  • Employee testimonials – 400 characters
  • Title of custom module – 150 characters
  • Body of custom module – 500 characters
  • URL label for custom module – 70 characters
  • Recommendation – 3,000 characters
  • LinkedIn Publishing post headline – 100 characters
  • LinkedIn Publishing content length – 110,000 characters

 

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