Less Words, More Impact

A lot of people become flustered by character limits on social media captions. But, have you ever noticed when cutting down that anecdote for a LinkedIn post, or boiling those eight Instagram points down to five, or squeezing your core idea into one tweet, that it suddenly becomes a lot stronger than what you'd originally written?

We're taught that storytelling converts--and it can, and it does. But there's something to be said for getting right to the point. When you're limited by characters, you have to cut out the fluff and make sure your main idea shines. This can clarify (even for you) what that main idea truly is.

Think of it like this: A company should have a lot of great stories (origin story, social proof, case studies…) but their tagline is often a few words.

With this in mind, if you need to message something really critical and you find yourself using a lot of words to describe one idea, I often challenge clients to cut their post / email / release in half. I'm not saying you have to send it that way; but when you cut your narrative in half you drill down to the essentials…which you may like even better.

While it may sound counter-intuitive, this strategy is even more important when you're writing something tricky--like a delicate email, or a crucial press release. More is only more opportunities to cloud your message or trip over your words. Be as concise as possible in these moment for best results.