Are you about to post a comment on Facebook? Perhaps you are going to share a link with your Twitter followers. Or maybe you are pinning on Pinterest, adding a new post to your blog, or updating your status on LinkedIn. Whenever you interact with social media networks like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest or YouTube, or publish content to your website or blog, you need to keep the following character limits in mind.

  • Twitter tweets need to be 140 characters or less, 117 if you include a link (URL).
  • Google lists up to 66 characters, including spaces, of a web page title or headline in its search results.
  • The summary Google displays under your title in the search results is 156 characters, including spaces. (This is your meta description tag)
  • Google has set a limit of around 100,000 characters for Google+ posts.
  • Your Bing character title limit is 65, with a meta description limit of 150 characters.
  • The Yahoo search engine character limit is 72, and you are allowed up to 161 characters for your search description.
  • While Facebook now allows up to 63,206 characters in a status update, usually only the first 200 to 250 characters will appear on your original post, followed by a “see more” textual link.
  • When you comment on someone else’s original post on Facebook, the same character limits as above apply.
  • Your LinkedIn Status Updates (Network Updates) are limited to 140 characters.
  • Your LinkedIn Profile Summary is limited to 2,000 characters.
  • Pinterest captions are limited to 500 characters.
  • YouTube Video Descriptions can be up to 5,000 characters, including “tagging” up to 120 characters.
  • YouTube Channel Descriptions have a 1,000 character limit, and video titles can include up to 100 characters.

The lesson here in most cases is to keep your content short.

That way, everything you have to say can be viewed on most social networking sites and in Google search results without the reader having to do anything. A couple of other excellent opportunities for search engine optimization and reader engagement reveal themselves when you take another look at the social media character limits above.

For instance, YouTube video descriptions can be up to 5,000 characters long. YouTube also just happens to be the second largest search engine in the world. So if you are not using every single one of those 5,000 characters that this “second only to Google” search engine allows, shame on you. (Google purchased YouTube a few years ago, yet another reason to use all of the characters possible in your video descriptions, since Google treats YouTube very well in the search rankings.)

The same SEO and keyword ranking strategy can be applied to Google+ posts, as well as LinkedIn profile summaries and Facebook status updates. Social networking sites are very respected in Google, Yahoo, Bing and other search engines.

So use as many characters as is allowed to get an edge up on your competition. And whenever possible, keep your most important message and content to 140 characters or less, for easy viewing and immediate engagement.