A study has been conducted to discover the perfect length of everything online. The results were posted this week and make for interesting reading. Have you ever considered how long your tweets should be? Or how many words make up the perfect email subject? The answer is: keep it short! On the internet, people read fast. They skim and scan for important words. If it’s not relevant they move on quickly.
You have to hook them in and squeeze information into a small space. Advertisers and copy writers spend hour distilling complex processes into one sentence. Have you ever considered this approach for tweets, emails and other social media posts? You should. Here are the highlights of the study.
Tweets
You only get 140 characters for a tweet. However, it seems that even that is too much. The perfect tweet is between 71-100 characters long. Engagement is 17% higher on tweets within this parameter. If you include a hashtag, the perfect character count is six. Short and sweet. Complicated hashtags are a no-no. Twitter’s user growth is slowing, but it still remains one of the most important online outlets. Use it well.
Facebook Posts
The best Facebook posts are even shorter than a tweet. Posts with 40 characters or less get 86% more engagement. Facebook is not the place for your lengthy rants and stories! Get straight to the point. Interaction with Facebook posts increase when you use images. Try to include a relevant image to each one of your short posts.
URL domains
The best URL domain name is only eight characters long. Bad news if your company name is lengthy! Consider this before you start a business. Domain names are essential for search engine optimisation too. The shorter and more concise, the better. Talk to an SEO company in the UK for more advice on the perfect domain name.
Email Subject Line
Try not to go over 39 characters with your subject lines. You should be able to convey the nature of your email in one sentence. People receive hundreds of emails a day. They need to know that yours is important! Emails with short subject lines have a much higher click rate. Have a look at this table to see if your open rates are above average.
Blog Posts
Blog posts should be read within three minutes. If it’s particularly in-depth, you can extend to six minutes but only if it really needs it! This gives you around 1,600 words to play with. A short, quick read should only be 500. You can get plenty of information in with that word count. The optimum title should be six words and the best paragraphs are less than 60 characters.
YouTube Video
When looking at the 50 most popular videos on YouTube, the average length clocked in at just under three minutes. Unless you’re addressing a lengthy issue, keep it short and sweet. There are plenty of distracting ‘suggested videos’ on YouTube. If you don’t connect quickly your viewer will have wandered off.
Content on the internet is digested fast. The key is intriguing your reader with short, snappy titles and concise subject lines. Then draw them in with easily digestible content. Condense your point or argument and keep it simple.