LinkedIn Character Counter

LinkedIn's Character Limit Reality

You get 3,000 characters on LinkedIn posts. That's a lot. But here's the thing - only the first ~140 characters show before people have to click "see more." Even less on mobile. So those first two lines? They're everything.

I've found posts around 1,200-1,600 characters do best. Long enough to say something meaningful, short enough that people actually read it. The algorithm cares about engagement in the first hour, so if nobody clicks "see more," your reach tanks.

What Actually Works on LinkedIn

• Start with a hook. Something that makes people stop scrolling. Personal stories work well.
• Short paragraphs. One or two sentences each. Walls of text get skipped.
• Drop the corporate speak. "I messed up" beats "learnings from a challenging quarter" every time.
• End with a question. People love sharing opinions. Gets you comments.
• Tuesday-Thursday mornings usually work best. But honestly, test your own audience.

How LinkedIn Counts Your Characters

When you bold or italicize text on LinkedIn, those formatting characters count toward your limit. Same with links - even though LinkedIn displays them as preview cards, the full URL still eats up characters. I learned this the hard way after hitting the limit mid-post. If you paste a 100-character URL, that's 100 characters gone, even if LinkedIn shortens how it displays.

Mentions work differently. When you tag someone with @FirstName LastName, you're using characters based on the length of their name. A mention to @John Smith costs you 11 characters. Emojis? Most count as one character, but some complex ones (like flags or certain skin tone variations) might count as two. The counter tool above handles all of this, so you can see exactly what you're working with before you post.

Line breaks count too. Every time you hit Enter, that's a character. People sometimes forget this when they're adding white space for readability. It's worth it - scannable posts perform better - but just know you're spending characters on those breaks.

What Makes LinkedIn Posts Perform

Your first line is your ad. If it doesn't grab attention, nobody expands your post. I've tested this repeatedly - posts that open with a question or a controversial statement get way more clicks on "see more" than posts that ease into the topic. The "see more" fold appears after roughly 140 characters, which is annoyingly short. This means you have maybe two sentences to convince someone your post is worth reading.

Carousel posts (those PDF documents with multiple slides) consistently outperform regular text posts. The algorithm seems to favor them, probably because people swipe through them, which counts as engagement. Text-only posts can still work if the content is sharp, but you're fighting an uphill battle. Same with polls - they trigger interaction, which LinkedIn rewards with reach.

There's this ongoing debate about whether to be professional or personal on LinkedIn. The truth? Personal wins, but only if it connects to your professional life somehow. Posts about career struggles, lessons learned, or behind-the-scenes moments get way more engagement than corporate announcements or industry news summaries. People want to see the human side. But there's a line - overly personal stuff that has nothing to do with work tends to flop.

Frequently Asked Questions