It seems like there can only be one victor in the contest between short and long form video content. Okay, not precisely. One of the most effective ways to increase audience engagement for your business is to make videos. Indeed, it has the potential to boost audience engagement, brand association, conversion rates, and email click-through rates (CTR). Not whether to utilize long-form or short-form video for your brand, though, is the question. This is the way your video marketing plan should combine the two.
Short-form vs. long-form video content: Definitions
It’s easy to distinguish between short-form and long-form videos: the former are shorter than the latter. More precisely, long-form videos are more than 10 minutes, while short-form videos are usually shorter than that. Short-form videos are common on social media, though they can also be seen on other platforms. For instance, Target advertises their products on Instagram using this style for videos.
Usually, longer videos can be found on YouTube or the website of a firm. Wistia, a supplier of podcast and video hosting, employs long-form video to inform its viewers about the price of producing a video.
A brief history of video marketing
Video has been a hugely popular tool for audience relationship building since the early 2000s. For instance, YouTube was merely a tiny video dating site in 2005 (yep, a dating site). It wasn’t the widely used social media network and video search engine that it is now. We also didn’t have Reels, IGTV, TikTok, or most other video-focused platforms. But YouTube is a great illustration of why it’s important to mix in both long and short videos. Long-form YouTube videos were the norm until 2022. An significant component of its algorithm was and still is how long users view movies. Take a peek at the one-hour event footage that Apple posts to its channel. YouTube introduced its Shorts feature to compete with dominant short-form platforms like TikTok and Instagram.
Sharing both short and long form material on one platform now helps businesses and YouTube creators. Because there are so many different video marketing platforms, your plan must be adaptable. Every network has its own set of best practices for videos, be it Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, or your own website. It’s not really up to you to decide whether to make long-form or short-form videos if you want your content strategy to succeed in 2023 and beyond. Videos, whether lengthy or short, have a place in your content strategy. Learn more about each kind of video content and when to use it for your business by continuing to read.
Your marketing channels
Finally, the choice between long-form and short-form video material is heavily influenced by where you intend to share your videos. As previously said, you can deviate from the norm in terms of what kind of content is appropriate for a certain marketing channel—but only if it is effective. Certain platforms impose duration restrictions on your videos. As of this writing, Instagram Reels are limited to 60 seconds in length. TikToks are limited to three minutes. Videos on LinkedIn can last up to 10 minutes. No matter how much you would like to, you are unable to post long-form video material on those three channels at this time. There are restrictions on what the platform allows you to use if you include videos in your adverts.
Be careful to do your homework on the sites you want to share your films on before deciding on their duration. Investing in a video that you want to share but it doesn’t work there is the last thing you want to do.
“Just remember that you can test different video lengths until you find what works best –– the sweet spot. Pay attention to your video performance and adjust until you see success.”
Employ a group of knowledgeable marketers to take care of the research and video production on your behalf.
Just because something worked for one type of video doesn’t mean it will always work. Your video marketing strategy needs to be flexible and adjust to people’s viewing behaviors for maximum impact.
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