Lengthy Facebook Status Updates Show Higher Interaction Rates

In this post we look at the length of status messages on Facebook. We wanted to find out how the length of status messages effects user interaction (1). We looked at 700,000 Facebook posts and pulled 60,000 status updates.

First we determine how often Facebook page admins are posting with relation to the character length of the post. This is what we saw:

As we can see in the graph above, posts from about 40 to 140 characters are most common (with a peak at 60 characters).  After 140 characters the graph falls sharply.  There are no posts past 420 (Facebook character limit).

Why do posts drastically drop off at 140?  One reason we believe is Twitter.  By staying within 140 character limit, page admins posting to both Facebook and Twitter can insure their posts are compatible on both social media platforms.  There is higher post rate for shorter rather than longer character posts. 140 character or less status updates have a high post rate. 140-420 character status updates have a lower post rate.

In the next graph we look at character length in relation to interaction rate:

On average it shows that interaction rate continues to go up with the length of the status message. Don’t be afraid to share longer stories with your fans. Longer messages can give them a chance to connect.

Posting longer Facebook status updates shows higher interaction than shorter ones >tweet this<

(1)Interaction rate

We took  number of Likes and Comments for a post and divided it by the number of Page Likes at the time of publish.

Please note that this is our definition of interaction rate since it slightly differs from Facebook’s definition.

*This article is part of our Engagement & Interaction white paper.  (Download below, it’s free!)

We answer the questions that every Page Admin is asking with definitive answers from scientific analysis.  We analyzed the top 20,000 Facebook Pages to find posting techniques that really work. It is free and quick to download. Get it now!

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If you are a Facebook page admin looking for ways to increase Facebook engagement feel free to reach out to us:http://momentusmedia.com/publisher/index.php/momentus/contactus