The Proven Ideal Length Of Every Tweet, Facebook … SMART THE PROVEN IDEAL ... Many different studies over the years have confirmed that shorter ... Of course, six-word headlines

WORK SMART

THE PROVEN IDEAL LENGTH OF EVERY TWEET,FACEBOOK POST, AND HEADLINE ONLINEFEEL LIKE YOU'RE TOO WORDY--OR TOO BRIEF? FIND OUT THE RIGHT

LENGTH FOR POSTS TO TWITTER, FACEBOOK, AND MORE, FOR THE BEST

IMPACT POSSIBLE.

BY KEVAN LEE

Every so often when I’m tweeting or emailing, I’ll think: Should I

really be writing so much?

I tend to get carried away. And for the times that I do, it sure would be

nice to know if all this extra typing is hurting or helping my cause. I

want to stand out on social media, but I want to do it in the right way.

Curious, I dug around and found some answers for the ideal lengths of

tweets and titles and everything in between. Many of these could have

been answered with “it depends,” but where’s the fun in that? Solid

research exists to show the value of writing, tweeting, and posting at

certain lengths. We can learn a lot from scientific social media

guidelines like these. Here’s the best of what I found.

THE IDEAL LENGTH OF A TWEET IS 100 CHARACTERS

Whom should you trust when it comes to advice on the ideal length of

a tweet? How about Twitter itself?

Twitter’s best practices reference research by Buddy Media about

tweet length: 100 characters is the engagement sweet spot for a

tweet.

Creativity loves constraints and simplicity is at our core. Tweets are limited

to 140 characters so they can be consumed easily anywhere, even via

mobile text messages. There’s no magical length for a Tweet, but a recent

report by Buddy Media revealed that Tweets shorter than 100 characters

get a 17% higher engagement rate.

The Proven Ideal Length Of Every Tweet, Facebook Post... http://www.fastcompany.com/3028656/work-smart/the-pr...

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The Buddy Media research falls in line with similar research by Track

Social in a study of 100 well-known brands that are popular on Twitter.

Track Social also found that the perfect Tweet length was right around

100 characters.

Their analysis saw a spike in retweets among those in the 71-100

character range--so-called “medium” length tweets. These medium

tweets have enough characters for the original poster to say

something of value and for the person retweeting to add commentary

as well.

THE IDEAL LENGTH OF A FACEBOOK POST IS LESS THAN 40 CHARACTERS

Forty characters is not much at all. (The sentence I just wrote is 35

characters.)

But 40 is the magic number that Jeff Bullas found was most effective

in his study of retail brands on Facebook. He measured engagement of

posts, defined by “like” rate and comment rate, and the ultra-short

40-character posts received 86% higher engagement than others.

The 40-character group also represented the smallest statistical set in

the study (only 5% of all posts qualified at this length), so best practices

on Facebook also include the next most popular set: Posts with 80

characters or fewer received 66% higher engagement.


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Many different studies over the years have confirmed that shorter

posts are better on Facebook. One such study by BlitzLocal looked at

nearly 120 billion Facebook impressions and found that performance

tailed off as posts grew longer. Their particular data found significant

advantages to question posts between 100 to 119 characters.

THE IDEAL LENGTH OF A GOOGLE+ HEADLINE IS LESS THAN 60 CHARACTERS

To maximize the readability and appearance of your posts on Google+,


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you may want to keep your text on one line. Demian Farnworth of

Copyblogger studied the Google+ breaking point and found that

headlines should not exceed 60 characters.

Here is an example of what we mean. The post below had a headline

exceeding 60 characters and got bumped.

This post kept the title within 60 characters and stayed on one line.

Demian’s advice goes even deeper. If your Google+ headline simply

can’t be contained in one line, then you can turn to Plan B. Write a

superb first sentence.

In the last update, Google changed the layout of posts so that you only see

three lines of the original post before you see “Read more” link. In other

words, your first sentence has to be a gripping teaser to get people to click

“Read More.”

Here is Demian’s killer example:


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In terms of overall post length, Google+ posts average 156 characters,

according to Qunitly Research. Digging further, Quintly found the

largest spike in engagement at posts of 5 characters in length and the

second-highest spike in posts of 442 characters. Takeaway: You can

write a lot longer on Google+ and still find great results.

THE IDEAL LENGTH OF A HEADLINE IS SIX WORDS

How much of the headline for this story did you read before you

clicked?

According to a post by KISSmetrics, you might not have read it all.

Writing for KISSmetrics, headline expert Bnonn cites usability research

revealing we don’t only scan body copy, we also scan headlines. As

such, we tend to absorb only the first three words and the last three

words of a headline. If you want to maximize the chance that your

entire headline gets read, keep your headline to six words.

Of course, six-word headlines are rare (and hard to write!). If you can’t

cut your title down to six words, you can still be aware of how your

headline might be read, and you can adjust accordingly. As the

KISSmetrics post says:

Of course, that’s seldom enough to tilt the specificity-meter into the red.

And I have it on good authority that some of the highest-converting

headlines on the web are as long as 30 words. As a rule, if it won’t fit in a

tweet it’s too long. But let me suggest that rather than worrying about

length you should worry about making every word count. Especially the

first and last three.


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THE IDEAL LENGTH OF A BLOG POST IS SEVEN MINUTES, 1,600 WORDS

When measuring the content that performs best on their site, Medium

focuses not on clicks but on attention. How long do readers stick with

an article?

In this sense, an ideal blog post would be one that people read. And

Medium’s research on this front says that the ideal blog post is seven

minutes long.

To arrive at this number, Medium measured the average total seconds

spent on each post and compared this to the post length. All Medium

posts are marked with a time signature for how long the read should

be. After adjusting their analysis for a glut of shorter posts (overall, 74%

of posts are under three minutes long and 94% are under six minutes

long), they came to their conclusion:

And there we have it: the average total seconds rises for longer posts, peaks

at seven minutes, and then declines.

And in terms of word count, a seven-minute read comes in around

1,600 words.

(A photo-heavy post could bring the average down closer to 1,000.

Medium’s seven-minute story on ideal post length was filled with

images and graphs and contained 980 words.)


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SerpIQ examined the question of ideal post length from an SEO

perspective. They looked at the top 10 results on search results pages

and counted the words in each article. Their data included text in the

sidebars of posts, so you can knock a few words off of the totals

below.

Of course, as with any of these ideal lengths, the answers you find

here could very well be taken as “it depends,” since research varies

from site to site. For instance, Moz found that longer posts on their

blog get linked to more often, and Upworthy found little correlation

between length and attention when they tested Medium’s hypothesis

for themselves. (Upworthy cited factors like type of posts and audience

as a couple of possible explanations for the discrepancy.)

Perhaps the best takeaway here is this, borrowed from the conclusion

of Medium’s study:

What it does mean is that it’s worth writing however much you really need.

Don’t feel constrained by presumed short attention spans. If you put in the

effort, so will your audience.

THE IDEAL WIDTH OF A PARAGRAPH IS 40-55 CHARACTERS

I know, I know. Width and length aren’t the same thing, but I just

couldn’t resist this interesting take. Social media expert Derek Halpern

found that there are a pair of very important, underlying factors that go

into the width of your content:

Content width can give the appearance of simplicity or complexity■Content width is key to maximizing reader comprehension■


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The ideal paragraph length, in this sense, would appear simple to the

reader and allow for easy reading. Halpern believes he found the

window where this happens.

The problem is, to ensure maximum comprehension and the appearance of

simplicity, the perfect line length ranges between 40 and 55 characters per

line, or in other words, a content column that varies between 250-350 pixels

wide (it depends on font size and choice).

Forty and 55 characters per line means about 8 to 11 words. If you’re

viewing the Buffer blog in a desktop browser, you’re likely seeing up to

20 characters per line. Whoops!

You may have noticed many sites online that have a different font for

their lead paragraph than they do for the remainder of their text.

Would you believe there is psychology at play here? Consider that

shorter lines appear as less work for the reader; they make it easier to

focus and to jump quickly from one line to the next. Opening

paragraphs with larger fonts--and therefore fewer characters per

line--are like a a running start to reading a piece of content. This style

gets readers hooked with an easy-to-read opening paragraph, then

you can adjust the line width from there.

Here’s an example from Smashing Magazine:

THE IDEAL LENGTH OF AN EMAIL SUBJECT LINE 28-39 CHARACTERS


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In September 2012, MailChimp published the following headline on its

blog: Subject Line Length Means Absolutely Nothing. This was quite

the authoritative statement, but MailChimp had the data to back it up.

Their research found no significant advantage to short or long subject

lines in emails. Clicks and opens were largely the same.

By this token, you are likely to be okay writing an email of any length

(and always better off being specific and helpful with the subject you

write, regardless of how many words you use). That being said, other

research hints at a sweet spot: 28-39 characters.

A study released by Mailer Mailer around the same time as MailChimp’s

study found a slight bump in opens and clicks at a certain range of

characters. Here is their analysis:

The stat is one of the few of its kind to show a demonstrative (but not

overwhelming) difference in subject line lengths. Litmus referenced

this study in their popular subject line infographic. If there were ever to

be a recommended length for a subject based on research, this would

be it.

Beyond the perfect length, you can also adhere to best practices. In

general, a 50-character maximum is recommended, although

MailChimp does point out that there can be exceptions:

4–15 characters: 15.2% open; 3.1% click■16–27 characters: 11.6% open; 3.8% click■28–39 characters: 12.2% open; 4% click■40–50 characters: 11.9% open; 2.8% click■51+ characters: 10.4% open; 1.8% click■


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The general rule of thumb in email marketing is to keep your subject line to

50 characters or less. Our analysis found this to generally be the rule. The

exception was for highly targeted audiences, where the reader apparently

appreciated the additional information in the subject line.

Of course, you can always just learn from those who do it best and

those who do it worst. In MailChimp’s studies they came across some

especially high performers--and some low performers.

THE IDEAL LENGTH OF A PRESENTATION IS 18 MINUTES


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Organizers of TED have found that 18 minutes is the ideal length of a

presentation, and so all presenters--including Bill Gates and

Bono--are required to come in under this mark.

The science behind this 18-minute mark comes from studies of

attention spans. Scientists seem to agree on a range of 10 to 18

minutes for how long most people can pay attention before they

check out. The physiological reason behind this is that new

information must be processed by the brain, resulting in a huge use of

glucose, oxygen, and blood flow as brain neurons fire and burn energy.

This loss of energy leads to fatigue.

Carmine Gallo, writing on LinkedIn, pointed to even more scientific

research at the root of this attention-time phenomenon. Gallo wrote

of Dr. Paul King of Texas Christian University who likens the act of

listening and absorbing information to lifting weights: The more we are

asked to take in, the heavier and heavier the load gets. Eventually, we

can’t hold the weight anymore, and we drop it all--or forget it all.

King tested this on graduate students, observing that those who went

to class three days a week for 50 minutes recalled more information

than those who went to class one day a week for three hours.

Science is a nice reason to put a limit on presentations, but if you’re

sharing yours online or looking for virality, there could be other

important factors, too. Here is what TED curator Chris Anderson

thinks:


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It [18 minutes] is the length of a coffee break. So, you watch a great talk, and

forward the link to two or three people. It can go viral, very easily. The

18-minute length also works much like the way Twitter forces people to be

disciplined in what they write. By forcing speakers who are used to going on

for 45 minutes to bring it down to 18, you get them to really think about

what they want to say. … It has a clarifying effect. It brings discipline.

THE IDEAL LENGTH OF A TITLE TAG IS 55 CHARACTERS

Title tags are the bits of text that define your page on a search results

page. Brick-and-mortar stores have business names; your web page

has a title tag.

Recent changes to the design of Google’s results pages mean that the

maximum length for titles is around 60 characters. If your title exceeds

60 characters, it will get truncated with an ellipse. The design change

can be seen below where a formerly ideal title has now been

truncated.

Finding a hard-and-fast rule for the maximum recommendation of a

title tag isn’t as easy as you’d think. Quick typography lesson: Google

uses Arial for the titles on its results pages, Arial is a proportionally-

spaced font, meaning that different letters take up different width. A

lowercase “i” is going to be narrower than a lowercase “w.” Therefore,

the actual letters in your title will change the maximum allowable

characters that can fit on one line.

Moz dug deep to see where exactly this maximum character limit

surfaced for truncated titles. They found that 55 characters seemed to

be the breaking point as a general rule.


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THE IDEAL LENGTH OF A DOMAIN NAME IS EIGHT CHARACTERS

This one may not apply to all of you, but if you’re trying to name your

startup it’s a useful find. According to Daily Blog Tips, these are the

characteristics of a good domain name:

Daily Blog Tips also found the ideal length. They ran an Alexa report

that looked at the domains for the top 250 websites. The results: Over

70% of the sites had domain names of eight characters or less, and the

average number of characters per domain was just over seven.

RECAP

For the tl;dr version of this article on ideal length, here’s a graphic that

It is short■It is easy to remember■It is easy to spell■It is descriptive or brandable■It does not contain hyphens and numbers■It has a .com extension■


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encompasses all the guidelines mentioned above.

What lengths have you found work best for you? I’d be keen to hear

your thoughts in the comments.

This article originally appeared in Buffer and is reprinted with

permission.

[Image: Flickr user Will Culpepper]

April 7, 2014 | 5:39 AM

A D D N E W C O M M E N T S I G N I N

4 COMMENTS


14 of 15 7/14/14 3:02 PM

K E VA N L E E 3 MONTHS AGO

Ideal length of a video online? That would surely depend on

content, but any data on this? Ideal length of a news video vs. an

explainer?

Comment removed.


interesting read. thanks for the info!


Great Article. I have always said that it really depends on the

audience that you are presenting to so it is important to always

keep an eye on your analytics. However, this is a great starting point

for anyone that is looking to build there brand on social media.


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The Proven Ideal Length Of Every Tweet, Facebook … SMART THE PROVEN IDEAL ... Many different studies over the years have confirmed that shorter ... Of course, six-word headlines