Tristan Hotham
Question

Do shorter Facebook posts get more engagement?

Answered by Dr Tristan Hotham, researcher on social media, campaigns and politics, from his own published research.

Short answer

Not really. What mattered most was whether a post had any text: posts with no text drew about 42% fewer interactions than posts of 101 to 200 characters. Among posts with text, engagement was U-shaped but mostly flat.

What the evidence shows

Caveats

These are associations: pages choose how much to write. The steeper pattern before 2015 coincides with a break in data capture.

Read the research

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