Are you thinking of writing a social media post and posting it immediately? Whoa back!
There is a lot of thought that should go into each post you make on your business page, from your wording to the timing of your post. In today’s blog, I’m talking about three important factors to take into account and how they’ll affect the success of your message.
1) Character Limits
It is easy to get wordy in your posts when trying to convey all the information you want to, but be aware that there are indeed ideal character limits for posts. Note that there hasn’t been an in-depth study done on ideal post lengths in a few years, but analytics have shown that the rule of thumb back then also fits now – the shorter your post, the better it will be received.
If you don’t pay for X (Twitter), you can only post 280 characters (if you’re a premium user, it’s 25,000). But according to Keyhole, the ideal tweet is usually between 70 and 100 characters. X may have expanded its character limit, but people still prefer the short but sweet tweets that we saw back when its limit was just 140 characters.
A lot on Facebook has changed over the years, but its ideal post length hasn’t. Facebook’s character limit sits at a crazy long 63,206 characters – but if you have enough words to hit that mark you should probably direct followers to a website blog (or a novella). Instead, keeping it under about 100 characters is the way to go. The goal is to keep viewers from having to click the “See More” that appears at about 150 characters because studies show that more people will keep scrolling when they have to expand the post to read the full caption.
SocialInsider conducted an Instagram study early last year and found that Instagram captions that have fewer than 30 words generate the highest engagement rate. Not surprisingly, the more words a caption has, the less engagement an Instagram post gets. Instagram is more of a graphics-based platform anyway, so it’s not surprising that people are skipping over those posts with long captions in favor of more visual posts.
2) Visuals
Good visuals to accompany your post mean the difference between a successful post and one that only gets one or two views. Figuring out which visual works best for your post can be a challenge and one you need to consider early in the process. Most people go one of three ways with their visuals – images, videos, or graphics, though some also use memes.
Different platforms see different engagement numbers depending on the visual used, but Hootsuite notes that albums and carousels are the most popular when it comes to Facebook and Instagram. Videos are gaining popularity on Facebook, with a .2% increase from the second to third quarter last year. Interestingly, while Facebook sees an increase in engagement, Reels have dropped on Instagram from 3.2% in the second quarter to 3% in the third – a notable statistic in an era that sees Instagram pushing more video content. Among the three visuals, photos are the least popular on Facebook, though they did see an increase from 2% to 2.2% and come in second on Instagram with a rise from 4.2% to 4.5% from Q2 to Q3 last year.
If you’re creating a video for your post, the best way to go about it is by shooting vertical in a 16:9 (1920 x 1080) ratio. Instagram automatically shares videos as Reels and Facebook also prefers to show them in a vertical orientation to fit phones better.
If you go with a photo, carousel, or graphic, the size you want varies depending on the platform you’re posting on. You can find a guide to those different sizes on the Pyrois Media post I made last month below.
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3) Post Time
Knowing the best times to post for your page is vital to make sure it gets in front of your target audience. One thing to remember about post timing is that audience behavior changes over time, so you need to keep an eye on what they’re doing.
For example, the last two years my clients’ pages did best if I posted between 9AM and 10AM. After all that time, it’d seem safe to assume that continuing to post during that period would be a no-brainer. But late last year, I noticed that posts weren’t getting as much engagement and reach numbers were down. A quick look told me that though the demographics on the pages were staying the same, the time of day followers engaged with posts had changed.
I waited a few more weeks to make sure the behavior change hadn’t occurred due to the holiday season (the holiday calendar is something to be aware of when looking at any analytics) and when it hadn’t, I shifted my post times. Numbers returned to their previous levels (and even rose in some cases), showing how important post timing is.
Want to improve your brand’s social media presence in 2025, but not sure where to start? Pyrois Media can help! Email Melissa@PyroisMedia.com to find out how to make this your best year yet.
“When I started the social media for Amplify Horse Racing in 2020, I was juggling multiple other jobs on top of building a growing nonprofit and trying to increase our online presence. I had a vision for the type of content I wanted to be sharing, but neither the time nor the knowledge of strategy to execute on it. Melissa and I had met in passing at various horse events, but it was another client of hers who officially connected us and recommended her to begin overseeing our social media. Melissa has been instrumental in providing advice and guidance while carrying out my vision of delivering educational social media content. Since then, Amplify has grown into a national youth organization for the Thoroughbred industry, and our social media channels have been an instrumental part of reaching our target audience with our messaging as an educational organization. I would highly recommend Melissa and Pyrois Media!”
– Annise Montplaisir, Amplify Horse Racing