Social Media Cheat Sheet: Character Limits & Posting Parameters

Creating a social media marketing calendar for your law firm can certainly be challenging! There’s so much to consider when deciding how best to adapt your content for each social media channel: engaging topics, appropriate content formats, posting schedules, the best times to post on each platform.

If all that wasn’t enough, each social media network has its own set of specifications and maximum character lengths, which seem to change on a weekly basis. That’s why we put together the latest, most up-to-date social media post specs in this handy guide. Read on to learn more about the specifications for each platform, along with some advice about best practices.

Google My Business

Posts	1,500 max, no minimum
Title	58 characters max

Posts can be up to 1,500 characters, but only the first 100 words are visible. The rest can be seen once the post is clicked on, but because of GMB’s design, that’s not very intuitive. According to Google, the ideal length of a GMB post is between 150 – 300 characters.

Facebook

Username	50 characters max
Page Description	155 characters max
Posts	63,206 characters max
Comments	8,000 characters max
Video size	Up to 10 GB
Duration	240 mins max
Format	MP4 recommended, but any format can be used
Image Upload Size	30 MB max

Of course, just because Facebook allows 63K+ characters doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. The chances of visitors reading the entire post of that length are slim. Social media experts, including marketing giant Hubspot, consider 40 – 50 characters to be the ideal length for a post.

Twitter

Tweets	280 characters max
Direct Messages	10,000 characters max
Image Upload Size	5 MB max
Resolution	1500 x 500 pixels

Although Twitter has increased the character limits from 140 to 280 characters, shorter tweets get more engagement. Studies show that tweets that are 71 – 100 characters in length are liked and retweeted more than longer posts. Remember, @ mentions, gifs, and images don’t take away from a tweet’s character limits, but links do, though they’ll be shortened to 23 characters.

LinkedIn

Status	700 characters max
Articles	120,000 characters max
Group Discussions	2,000 characters max

The ideal length for a LinkedIn status is around 100 characters. The “See More” button cuts off messages at about 140 characters. For articles, the recommendation is 3,000 characters.

Instagram

Caption	2,20 characters max
Bio	150 characters max
Username	30 characters max
Hashtags	30 hashtags max
Image Size	30 MB max
Image Aspect Ration	1:91:1 to 16:9
Video Upload	4 GB max
Video Duration	60 seconds max

Again, the character limit is probably more than you want to use. Using the full 2,200 characters means your visitor will need to click on the “See more” button to view your entire post, so it’s better to shorten your captions. Under 125 characters is recommended so that your entire caption is visible in the Instagram feed.

YouTube

Video Title	100 characters max
Description	5,000 characters max
Video length	Up to 12 hours

Note, your video title will likely cut off at 70 characters in most search results, so it’s best to keep your titles short and include your most important keywords at the beginning of the title.

The video description is the one place you should make full use of the allotted characters. YouTube is the third most popular search engine, following Google Search and Google Images, so including important keywords in your video description is a good way to improve your rankings in search results.

Capturing social media audience’s attention is a constant challenge for law firms, made more difficult by the constantly changing rules and regulations. Bookmark this cheat sheet to quickly refer back to the info you need for a successful social media marketing plan and don’t forget to also review our Online Marketing Images Cheat Sheet.

Rita Chaires

Director, Web and Online Marketing Services
American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys, Inc.
9444 Balboa Avenue, Suite 300
San Diego, California 92123
Phone: (858) 453-2128
www.aaepa.com