Short & Sweet Wins on Facebook

I shared a great blog post from Buffer the other day that talked about the ideal length for everything online.  The post says research shows that the ideal length for a Facebook post is 80 characters or less. Eighty characters or less?! Not even Twitter makes us omit so many words.

I decided to take a look at some brands in the space to see if this holds true. All were chosen randomly. I analyzed their last 20 posts (photos only for consistency) to see if they tend to follow this golden character rule, and if it pays off.

Below is what I found on each page. Disclaimer: Seven out of eight of these pages I do not manage. Because of that, I had to manually compile stats and have no idea if they pay for promoted post. Still, it will give you an idea:

NCAA WRESTLING

• The posts with the most engagement had character counts of 105, 16 and 25. The post that went over 80 characters had a call to action (which studies have shown increase engagement too).
• The average character count was 70.
• The posts with the least amount of engagement had character counts of 137, 197 and 86 (some of the longest posts in the entire batch).

NIKE RUNNING

• The posts with the most engagement had character counts of 0, 24 and 46.
• The average character count was 131.
• The posts with the least amount of engagement had character counts of 159, 120 and 154.

MLB

• The posts with the most engagement had character counts of 56, 25 and 22.
• The average character count was 74.
• The posts with the least amount of engagement had character counts of 129, 138 and 173.

MICHIGAN BASKETBALL

• The posts with the most engagement had character counts of 50, 13 and 6.
• The average character count was 45.
• The posts with the least amount of engagement had a character counts of 142, 43 and 103. These were some of the wordier posts, as U of M only went over 40 characters nine times.

NFL

• The posts with the most engagement had character counts of 31, 65 and 0.
• The average character count was 96.
• The posts with the least amount of engagement had character counts of 114, 111 and 141.

CINCINNATI REDS

• The posts with the most engagement had character counts of 31, 18 and 44.
• The average character count was 93.
• The posts with the least amount of engagement had character count of 100, 178 and 140.

PITTSBURGH PENGUINS

• The posts with the most engagement had character counts of 14, 273 and 156.
• The average character count was 323.
• The posts with the least amount of engagement had character counts of 428, 964 and 399.

PORTLAND TRAIL BLAZERS

• The posts with the most engagement had character counts of 28, 101 and 153. The post with 153 characters was a giveaway that included a call to action.
• The average character count was 109.
• The posts with the least amount of engagement had character counts of 117, 133 and 115.

All in all, the pages above do a good job with keeping their posts on the short side. And, it’s easy to see a pattern here… shorter posts perform better. There are always going to be exceptions to this rule, but it seems to be fairly consistent. Aside from length, there is another consistent element with post that performed well:

They don’t scream, “sell”. They’re clever, entertaining, emotionally charged or fun. The posts that performed at the top are anything but self-promoting. 

So, what do can you do to cut down on length? There are three key things:

1. Link back. 
Remember, you don’t have to fit all the information into a Facebook post.  Facebook rewards brands when fans click, so it’s better to leave them feeling like they need to learn more.

2. Let your copy and pictures work together. 
If you are posting graphics with information, there’s no need to include the same information in the copy. Double-check your copy and your graphic to make sure they are working together and not being redundant.

3. Remember attention spans.
The average attention span is only 8 seconds. Take into account all the noise online and it’s probably even less when you’re competing for attention on Facebook. You don’t want your post to feel like work, so keep it short.

 

So, what has your experience been? Have you found that short and sweet gets more traction on Facebook?

 

0