Creating Short and Snappy Social Posts

According to a study from Microsoft Corp, the average human has an attention span of roughly 8 seconds. To put this into perspective, the average attention span of a goldfish is approximately 9 seconds. What does this mean for your social media efforts? If your posts aren’t short and snappy, they won’t receive much engagement. Here are a few tips to help you create posts that get the point in 150 characters or less.

Let’s Talk Characters

It’s important to remember that character limits on social media platforms aren’t meant to represent how long each post should be. For example, Instagram posts are allowed to be up to 2,200 characters, but I would never in a million years make a caption this long. Just because the space is there, this doesn’t mean you need to use it. Stick to these general guidelines to determine how long each post should be:

• Facebook: 80 characters or less

• Instagram: 150 characters or less

• Twitter: 100 characters or less

• LinkedIn: 140 characters or less

Cut to the Chase

When you’re crafting long pieces of content, such as articles and whitepapers, you have a tremendous amount of space to elaborate on your ideas and provide detailed explanations. On the other hand, social media posts are meant to be short and focus solely on the main points. It’s important to completely switch up your writing style and strip the content down to the bare bones, without compromising on style, of course. For example, these social posts communicate the same general idea, but one cuts to the chase:

• Bad: In 2021, the main differentiator between a successful healthcare practice and an unsuccessful one is whether or not they’re able to provide customized care to their patients. Over the years, many healthcare professionals have found it difficult to clarify the unique needs of their patients, which is an essential step in creating individualized treatments. Patient surveys are useful, but often only scratch the surface of what people actually need from their providers. Fortunately, our organization offers effective solutions for getting to know your patients on a deeper level. Contact us to learn how we can assist.

• Good: The success of your healthcare practice depends on your ability to provide customized care. Contact us to learn about our solutions for getting to know your patients on a deeper level.

Learn to Whittle

To create effective social media posts, it’s imperative that you learn how to whittle. Now, I’m not referring to wood carving; I’m talking about whittling down your content until all that’s left is your main message and your call to action. Especially if you’re new to creating short, snappy posts, it can be difficult to break the cycle of using 50 words when 10 would do. If this sounds like the boat you’re in, try writing a social post like you normally would, and then spend a few minutes carving away at the language. Here are a few tips to get you started:

• Cut down on the number of adjectives you use

• Find shorter synonyms to use in place of long words

• Delete examples, unless they’re 100 percent necessary to your overall message

• Change your call to action to something simple, such as “Call us today” or “Contact us to learn more”

• Don’t worry about providing in-depth contextual information

Get Help

There’s no denying that communicating your message in a small number of characters can be tough. If you’re having trouble getting it right, make sure to contact Parklife to learn how we can assist. We’re experts in crafting both short and long-form content that sparks action.