Crafting social media content, such as witty tweets, optimized Instagram posts, or Facebook ad copy, may seem like very different tasks. However, they all have one common element – a platform-specific character limit. Knowing the ideal character count for your social media posts can significantly improve their chances of being read and engaged with by your audience.
To make this process easier, we’ve put together a detailed guide on social media character limits and ideal post lengths, along with a free character counter tool to help you test the length of your content before publishing.
Table of Contents
Platform-Specific Character Limits
Ads Character Count
- Headline – 40 characters
- Body Text – 125 characters
- Link Descriptions – 30 characters
Use our Facebook ad size guide to pair these character counts and create the perfect advertisement.
Regular Posts Character Count
Facebook allows up to 63,205 characters for regular posts. While this offers plenty of room for detailed storytelling, shorter posts perform better. The sweet spot, according to BuzzSumo, is around 50 characters.
Ads Character Limit
- Headline – 40 characters
- Body Text – 125 characters
- Link Descriptions – 30 characters
For more specifics, refer to our Instagram ad size guide.
Captions Character Count
Instagram captions can be up to 2,200 characters. However, captions are truncated at 125 characters. For optimal engagement, aim for captions between 1-50 characters. While longer captions can be beneficial for instructional or educational posts, shorter captions with a few well-chosen words or emojis tend to perform better for casual content.
Hashtags
Instagram allows up to 30 hashtags per post. However, fewer hashtags tend to drive more engagement, particularly 1-10 hashtags.
Tweet Character Count
Tweets can be up to 280 characters. Research suggests that the ideal length for a tweet is between 240-259 characters for maximizing likes, replies, retweets, and link clicks.
Other Platforms
Both Pinterest and LinkedIn have their own character limits for various content types. These are detailed in our comprehensive guide, but here are some key points:
- Maximum Number of Boards – 2,000
- Maximum Number of Pins – 200,000
- Profile Name – 30 characters
- Bio – 160 characters
- Board Name – 50 characters
- Board Description – 500 characters
- Pin Title – 100 characters
- Pin Description – 500 characters
- 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 Leader’s Caption – 150 characters
- Company Leader’s Description – 150 characters
- Employee Testimonials – 400 characters
- Recommendation – 3,000 characters
- LinkedIn Publishing Post Caption – 100 characters
- LinkedIn Publishing Content Length – 110,000 characters
By understanding these platform-specific character limits and best practices, you can create more effective social media content that resonates with your audience and drives desired engagement.