I write extremely long posts on my personal social media when less is called for. Do I care? Not a whole lot. Typically, I needed to write through a thought, got lost along the way and pressed publish anyway. For my personal social media use, that’s more than okay. I really only want like three people to read it.

But for business social media, it’s a real problem if only three people are reading your posts. So you have to stop and think, “Does this really need to be this long?” And you need to adjust accordingly. So how do you do that?

Are there character limits?

The first question you should ask yourself should always be about the technical aspect: Is this possible?

The number of characters you have on social media may seem endless, but I assure you that each network has its limits. So if you are writing the longest caption in the world and expect to be able to use it, check to see if that’s even possible. There are times when it will not be.

What is the goal of the post?

You should know the goal of every post you put out there, and it can vary widely. But if that goal is to get a community member to take a certain action, it’s less likely to happen if you go long. People only have so much time nowadays, and they’re checking social media between activities or during those natural pauses throughout the day. So they have a limit as to what they can give brands on social media.

If you’re looking for them to do something more than just read the post and engage with it, then go shorter and skimmable.

Is it a compelling story or breaking news?

If someone is going to read a long post, they need a reason to do so. And no, the reason is never about how much they like you. No one likes your brand enough to stop their scroll to read five thousand words about you.

Keeping that in mind, ask yourself if someone will actually read this. Is it news they need right now? Then yes, they probably will read it. If it’s a story that they can see themselves in, the answer is also likely yes. If it’s neither of those things, then it becomes incredibly less likely.

And regardless of the case, you still may want to consider giving the highlights on social media (it’s called a highlights reel for a reason). Then you can direct fans to your website for more information. Just make sure the highlights are compelling and short enough to make them want to click over to read more.

Should this be on my website?

Whether you’re calling it GEO or AEO, optimizing for AI is a bigger deal now that Google is prioritizing it. Keeping your information fresh and correct will go a long way toward making it to those AI answers. So don’t dump all of that information onto social media in the hopes that more eyes will see it. You will be working against yourself.

People are using AI for all kinds of tasks right now. Regardless of whether we agree with the uses, it’s important that we do what we can to make sure the correct answers are there. Although it may take some information from social media, AI is currently showing that it prioritizes what it finds on Google. That makes a network like Reddit super popular with AI, since a lot of questions are asked and answered on the site. But your website should be ranking higher than Reddit or any other network when it comes to your keywords. Because most Google users aren’t going to click past the first few sites and that shrinks to maybe just the first one thanks to AI.

So how do you get there? Fresh and informative content, especially long-form content. This takes a lot of research and work. It can inform what you put on social media. But you should put most of your rich, long content on your website.

How do you know which content belongs where? Social media is first date material. Used well, you should be able to entice fans to a second date, which is much more of a commitment than a first date. In other words, social media is the conversation and the website cements the relationship. If you think of your content in those terms, there is some clarity on where content goes and how it should be presented.

And keep in mind that this is both science and art. Experiment and refine constantly, and you will eventually get your content in the right places for your fans.

When do you write long for social media?