Character Limits Are Everywhere (Here's How to Deal)
From tweets to meta descriptions, character counts matter. Tips for writing within limits.
You write the perfect tweet. Hit post. It's too long.
You craft a meta description. Google truncates it mid-sentence.
Character limits are everywhere, and they don't care about your carefully chosen words.
The Limits That Matter
Twitter/X: 280 characters. The original 140 doubled, still not much room.
Meta descriptions: 155-160 characters before Google cuts them off.
Title tags: 50-60 characters for search results.
SMS: 160 characters per message. Longer texts split into multiple messages.
Slack: 40,000 per message. You'll hit the limit writing documentation.
Characters vs Words vs Bytes
Characters count every letter, space, and punctuation mark.
Words are typically separated by spaces. Different counters count hyphenated words differently.
Bytes matter for databases and file formats. UTF-8 characters can be 1-4 bytes each. An emoji is 4 bytes.
That's why you can fit fewer emojis in an SMS than letters.
Writing for Limits
Front-load the important stuff. If your content might be truncated, put the key message first. Google shows the beginning of your meta description, not the end.
Cut ruthlessly. "In order to" becomes "to." "At this point in time" becomes "now." Every word should earn its place.
Test before publishing. Especially for SEO content. What you see in your CMS isn't always what appears in search results.
Platform-Specific Tips
Twitter/X: Save characters with shorter URLs (they get wrapped anyway) but not by sacrificing clarity.
Google SEO: Focus on 155 characters for descriptions. Desktop shows more than mobile.
Instagram: 2,200 character limit on captions, but only the first two lines show without expanding.
LinkedIn: 3,000 characters for posts. The "see more" cutoff varies.
The Database Side
VARCHAR(255) is everywhere because it was MySQL's practical limit for indexed columns. If your content is longer, it might get truncated silently.
Unicode complicates this. A 255-character column might reject a 200-character string if those characters are multi-byte.
Counting Accurately
Different tools count differently. Some count newlines as one character, some as two (Windows line endings). Some count trailing spaces, some don't.
For social media limits, use the platform's own character counter when possible. Third-party tools might disagree.
Character limits force concision, which often improves writing. Learn the limits for your platforms, count before you publish, and embrace the constraint as a feature, not a bug.