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Social Media Strategy: Brevity v. Verbosity

So we compose beautifully written, elaborate Facebook posts about branding, strategy, the meaning of life, knowing that this information is important enough for everyone to appreciate and read. I’m terribly sorry to tell you this, but it’s not. It’s too long.

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Buffer lays out some great statistics about Facebook and content performance as an average.  Since we’re always encouraging subtraction around here, of course we’re most intrigued by the fact that longer posts actually cause your readers’ brains to run away. Okay, slight exaggeration – but they’re not interacting with your post which means they aren’t reading it.

Interestingly enough, if you can cut your posts down to less than 80 characters, your engagement could increase up to 66%.

How do you keep it short?

If you manage any sort of social media outlet, you’ve noticed that pictures inspire far more engagement than their wordy counterparts. Suddenly we remember that phrases like “A picture is worth a thousand words” and “Less is more” still have a lot of practical application today. So why waste that many words on a post that your followers might read half of when the epicness of this beary awesome high five is best captured with a picture anyways? If you have a lot to say, that’s alright. Pair your short posts and pictures with an external link to your blog where it’s more appropriate to divulge into every detail of how sharp that bear’s claws really were.

Go ahead, friends – write like it’s War and Peace if you want, but edit like it’s Twitter.

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