Instagram Post Caption Character Counts

Instagram Caption Character Counts

Today we're talking about character counts used in Instagram.

Instagram is very particular about how many characters you're allowed to use in your username, bio and in your post captions.

Your username or IG handle is limited to 30 characters, your bio is limited to 150 and post captions are limited to 2,200, including your hashtags.

Your bio will truncate at about 80 characters then showing …more and post captions will do the same at 125 characters.

Bio

You can't extend the number of characters you use in your bio but you can be clever with them. Don't repeat words, if your name is in your IG handle, don't repeat it in your bio and vice versa with your business name. Don't use unnecessary punctuation and use abbreviations where possible but only if they make sense in your bio. You don't want to confuse people by using unknown or uncommon abbreviations as you don't have the luxury of explaining them in your bio. For example, I'm teaching people to use IG as an abbreviation for Instagram (Insta Gram) but previously I was using the word Insta in my bio because Instagrammers were not used to the fact that IG refers to Instagram! I've gone to using IG now, because people know what it refers to.

Captions

With captions, there are a few ways of getting around the allotted 2,200 characters.

The first method is by putting your hashtags into the first comment on your post—trick with that is that you have to be quick, so that no-one else posts a first comment before you get to post the hashtags. If you have many followers, that may be a bit tricky, as they may have 'eyes on you' at the moment you make a post, so may beat you to the draw. Instagram is also not overly fond of that method of posting, so it may pay to avoid it.

The second way may be to write the first part of your caption using the allowed 2,200 characters and then write the rest of your caption in the first comment. You need to make your readers aware of this fact though, otherwise they might miss the rest of your post and think you've left it incomplete. You also run the risk of someone beating you with a first comment.

Another method I've heard of is by writing a blog post and using the caption to point your followers to the blog post for the whole story. The difficulty here is that you can't use a clickable link in a post, but you can now add those links to your bio, so you can refer people to your bio to reach the blog easily.

Another way of getting around this, is by sending the post to your stories and putting a link to the blog onto the story, as you can now add clickable links through a sticker. You can create a button image that you can upload to your phone, put the link into your story and then copy and paste the button over the link, so it looks professional. (Sounds like a tip for another day on how exactly to do this if you don't already know! 😊)

You can also limit your caption characters by limiting the number of hashtags you use. Many people say more is better but Instagram has trialled using 3-5 hashtags as well. It's up to you how many you use but you can't use more than 30 in a post.

Also, if you use them repeatedly, you may get 'hashtag ghosted' because you are using them too repetitively or they do not relate to the content that you are writing about. In this instance, your posts won't be shown when people search those hashtags you have used.

I generally use between 10 and 15, so if your caption is shorter you can use more and vice versa. It's good to do some research to see which work well and then alternating them for good coverage.

Regarding hashtags, I've also discovered that you don't have to separate your hashtags with a space because they are found even if they're not separated by spaces or commas! Depending on how many hashtags you're using it may give you those 10 or 15 characters you so desperately need to complete your caption!

Character Counts

As far as actually counting the characters is concerned there are also a few things to watch out for. You can use MS Word to do a character count once you've written your posts and added the hashtags and there are other methods of doing this too by either using Excel, Google Docs or Sheets or an online character counter. The Mac versions i.e. Numbers and Pages also have the same functionality.

I have found though that they all give slightly different counts! A post I wrote recently counted 1,841 characters in MS Word, 1,802 and 1,830 in two separate online character counters and 1,830 in Excel! I pasted the caption into Instagram and got a count of 1,830!

I tried this with another couple of posts and it seems that the Excel character count is most accurate, so that is the one I have taken to using! The character counts in Numbers and Pages also vary slightly. I prefer using my own spreadsheet as I always have access to it, so if I am off-line for some reason, I am still able to do the character count, which I wouldn't be able to do if I was using one of the online options.

I know the differences have to do with hidden 'space' characters that appear in blank paragraphs as well as the fact that emojis count for more than one character, so it's almost impossible to get this thing exactly right!

The way to make sure you don't get caught short in IG is to make sure you don't have a character count that goes all the way to 2,200! I find that depending on the number of emojis and paragraphs you are using you can lose up to 30 characters when you paste into Instagram. It also doesn't allow you to go and delete characters once you've pasted your content, it simply chops them off the end which really makes it tricky to try and edit on the fly! It is way easier and saves a lot of time if you make sure the character length is right before you go and start your post.

Well, happy counting and I hope this helps you eliminate the frustration of losing the end of your caption when you paste it into your IG post!