While a picture paints a thousand words, a few hundred more could drive more engagement for your Instagram posts.

With a 2,200 character limit, Instagram is not a long-form channel. But what’s the sweet spot for higher engagement? 20 characters? 138-150 characters? More than 150 characters? 280 characters?

Is shorter always better?

Shorter captions used to drive more engagements. Posts with 50 characters or less got more interactions in a 2019 analysis of  5.9 million Instagram posts by Quintly.

But shorter posts worked better for Instagram users who had more followers. For accounts with:

• 1,000 followers or fewer, interactions were the same regardless of caption length. So, if you’re only starting your Instagram account, you might want to consider posting more than a few words or hashtags.
• 1,000 to 1 million followers, posts with 1 to 50 characters got the most interaction.
• 1 million to more than 10 million followers, posts with zero characters got the most interaction.

Longer captions: the new black?

Average caption length on Instagram has doubled from 2016 to 2020, according to research by Fohr.

Longer captions drive more engagements, according to a 2021 Hootsuite experiment. This doesn’t mean that you have to hit 2,200 characters. But longer captions can:

1. Deliver more valuable information. If you’re putting out educational or informational content, images might not be enough to fully get your point across.
2. Tell a story. Captions can provide more context to images, and relatable or interesting stories can help you connect more with your followers and drive them to act.
3. Start a conversation. By writing an interesting caption, you can ask your followers to share their own thoughts, tips, or insights.

Make your caption look easy to read by adding line breaks every 25 words or so.

Instagram only displays the first 125 characters of your caption. So, make sure that your first 125 characters say something that will compel readers to click “Read more.”

What’s the best instagram hashtag limit?

Hashtags allow you to reach more audiences, especially those who aren’t following you yet. Instagram allows a maximum of 30 hashtags. But how many should you use?

That depends. Are you aiming for more reach? Or higher engagement?

• Posts with at least 9 hashtags got the highest engagement in a report by Track Maven. In another study, posts with 30 hashtags received almost twice the engagement of those with 5 or less, according to a Later analysis of 18 million IG feed posts.
• 20 hashtags is ideal for reaching more viewers, according to Later’s research. Posts with 30 hashtags got the second-highest average reach.

Bottom line: More is more. Posts with more hashtags perform better.

TIP: If you don’t want to exhaust your 2,200-character caption limit for hashtags, you can also add hashtags as comments.

How long should hashtags be?

Posts with 21-character hashtags received much more engagement, on average, compared to those with fewer or more hashtags, according to Track Maven.

What’s the best Instagram caption length for you?

Of course, different caption and hashtag lengths may perform differently for different accounts. Play around with your caption and hashtag lengths, and see what works best for your audience, brand and type of content.

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Sources: Benjamin Chacon, “What is the Best Instagram Caption Length?,” Later Media, Nov. 24, 2021

Stacey McLachlan, “Experiment: Do Long Captions Get More Engagement on Instagram?” Hootsuite, May 18, 2021

Monique Thomas, “The Number of Hashtags You Should Use on Instagram, According to 18M Posts,” Later Media, Nov. 12, 2021

“Instagram Study 2019: An in-depth report by Quintly,” Quintly, 2019

“The Best Hashtag Strategies for Social Media [PDF],” Track Maven, 2016

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