Do you struggle with writing social media updates because you’re unsure how long they should be?

Does writing a blog post send chills up and down your spine because you don’t know if you should write 500 or 1,600 words?

Do you want to faint at the thought of writing headlines for your content because you don’t know if it should be short or long?

If you answered YES to the above questions, you’re not alone.

I even question the right length for social media updates, SlideShare presentations, headlines, etc. Is the ideal Twitter update 100 characters? Or is it 71-100? Are 6 word headlines optimal? Or can you go over? It’s enough to drive you insane!

The most important thing to remember is to write for your audience and focus on what you’re writing. For example, if the ideal blog post is 1,600 words but your audience prefers 500-700 words, give them what they want.

If you’re selling merchandise, you may consider writing a headline of 10 words or more. David Ogilvy, a master advertiser, had research conducted on headlines. The study revealed that short headlines are good for readership.However, longer headline tended to sell more merchandise.

Remember, Google doesn’t buy from you. Your customers and clients buy from you!

The infographic below from SumAll, as seen on Buffer, will help take the pain out of trying to figure out the ideal social media updates, podcast lengths, size of images and more.

I hope you’ll find this infographic insightful. If you’re uncertain about some of the data, test it.

If you use Twitter, write a shorter Twitter update to see how your audience responds. Did your post get retweeted? How about replies did you receive? Testing social media updates gives you a good idea of what your audience wants and needs.

Your business is unique. What works for another business may not work for your audience and that’s okay. And sometimes, its best to ignore your competition. After all, they’re not you and you’re not them. You don’t want to sabotage your business by following someone else, do you?

Copy marketing strategies and tweak them to fit your business and use marketing tools that work for your business.

To save the infographic to your desktop, right click on it and choose Save Image As. You may want to print it out too. Consider bookmarking this post so you can easily refer back to it.

Infographic: Never Write the Wrong Social Media Updates Again!

Infographic attribution: http://blog.bufferapp.com.

BONUS!

Are you thinking about starting your own business? You’ll want to purchase a domain name. According to Moz, some of the best domains have the following characteristics:

• Short
• Easy to remember
• Easy to spell
• Have a .com extension
• Branded and descriptive
• No hyphen
• Do not have numbers

My domain, Savvy-Writer, has a hyphen. Why? Because I wanted it to stand out. Also, I think SavvyWriter.com was taken.

But there is another reason why you may want to use a hyphen: Sex. 

For example, I used to write, and now sometimes guest blog for, Travel-Writers-Exchange.com. If the owners didn’t use a hyphen, the domain name would be TravelWritersExchange.com. While sex sells, you may not want it to appear in your domain name, unless it is your business and industry. No judgment here!

Keep in mind that domain brokers buy variations of domain names. If the the one you want is taken, you either have to think of another domain name or buy it from a broker. This may cost your thousands of dollars.

I don’t see anything wrong with having a hyphen in my domain name. I haven’t had a client say to me, “I can’t hire you as my content writer. Your domain has a hyphen in it!”

If you’re concerned about adding a hyphen to your domain name, think of another one.

Over to you. What do you think about these optimal lengths? How long are your social media updates, blog posts, headlines, etc.? Let me know in the comments below.