This question is as old as social media marketing. What are the social media character limits?
As with anything else social media-related, there is no clear-cut answer. It’s likely going to depend on the platform, your audience, and the content. However, here are some rough guidelines and things to consider as you create your social media post text.
Platform character limits for social media posts
The first thing to consider is how long your social media posts can be. Each platform has placed character limits on their post text. Here are the in-platform limitations from each of the large platforms:
TikTok
Hard stop at 100 characters. TikTok is the shortest of the big platforms, which removes the emphasis from the caption and leaves little room for hashtagging your videos.
The iconic 140 character limit died in 2017 when the platform updated the length to 280 characters. Still limited, but not quite so much. You can add images and videos as well.
LinkedIn posts are 700 characters. Articles for Pages have removed limits, though, which allows LinkedIn Pages to post long-form content.
The character cap is at 2,200 characters for Instagram, including hashtags. You can add up to 30 hashtags, including comment hashtags.
63,206. You can also attach photos and videos. You have a ton of room to play on Facebook.
How long SHOULD your social media posts be?
Social media post length is where a lot of confusion originates because there isn’t a hard and fast answer. The most important thing you can do is a deep dive into your content to look for trends.
Are there similarities in your top posts? Start there.
If you are like many creators and have no idea where to start, here are some ideas.
TikTok
With a 100 character limit, there’s not a lot of meat here. So stick to hashtags and one or two words.
The heart of Twitter is humor and brevity. So keep it as short as you possibly can while getting your point across. Using less than 100 characters seems to be a sweet spot for Retweeting.
Post frequency tends to be a lot higher on Twitter, though, and threads provide a way to tell a longer story in-platform.
Posts cut off at 140 characters with a see more option. Either keep your caption shorter than 140 characters, so casual scrollers can get the whole post, or make it compelling enough for someone to click that see more button.
As far as Articles go, these are blog posts. Don’t go too long, but be long enough to say something important.
The Instagram team has recommended keeping your captions to 125 characters, as this is where the caption cuts off. The exceptions would be when you have a compelling story to tell and an audience with a history of reading more extended captions. If you can’t hook them in the first 125 characters, cut it off.
Facebook length really depends. Primarily on the post type. If you’re sharing a link, photo, or video, let the media tell the story. Keep your post in the 40-60 character range. The considerable caveat on Facebook is fewer limitations, and many publishers have success with more extended captions.
The rule here is to be engaging. Don’t expect people to read a novel while they’re scrolling social media posts.
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