With the attention span of most people dwindling, it’s now preferred that content creators and brands begin focusing on video content. There are more benefits to this. But which content should you create between short form vs long form video content?
You see, video marketing is a great way to increase brand engagement and growth. In this post, we will be going through these benefits, the factors to consider when coming up with video content, the trends to watch, and how to create short videos.
Short Form Video
TL;DR Summary
- Short-form videos are those that are typically 60 seconds or less in length, while long-form videos are those that are longer than 60 seconds.
- Some factors to consider when choosing between short and long form include the prospects, budget, type of video, channel you plan to upload it on, and purpose of the video.
- Short-form videos have several benefits: they’re easy to remember and distribute; they fit well with social media platforms; users have shorter attention spans so shorter videos are more effective; and they can be repurposed easily.
- Some popular trends in short-form video content include memes, promotions/sales, live streaming
Short Form vs long form video content
As said earlier, one of the challenges most content creators often face is whether to create long or short-form video content.
And since only one can win, I’m willing to show you the differences and benefits of both and which one you can incorporate into your video marketing strategy.
What is short-form video content?
These are typically short videos that are below 60 seconds in length. The length will mostly depend on the platform the content creator is using. Some videos can be slightly longer than 60 seconds, but they still fit into the category.
It’s a new way of sharing quick content in a way that the viewer can understand and not lose interest quickly. People now have shorter concentration spans of less than 9 seconds. That means if you create longer videos, they may not watch all of it.
What are long-form videos?
Long-form videos are precisely the opposite of short-form content. They are longer than 60 seconds and can go up to 5 minutes.
The main aim is to inform, entertain, or educate the audience about a particular topic. Most YouTube educational videos and your favorite songs fit in this category.
The 5 factors to consider
What should you consider when choosing to go with either long or short-form videos? Well, there are a few factors:
The prospects
Whether you create short or long-from videos is totally up to your audience’s interest and behavior. As they interact with your content, you will learn more about them. The data will always say it all.
The watch hours, click-through rate, and engagement rates will help you determine the type of content your prospects likes. So, create both short and longer videos for a start. You can collect data and optimize it later on.
The budget
It is less costly to create short videos compared to long videos, which will require a longer production process.
Hence, you will need a higher budget for the sound and video production and the video editors who will edit the videos to a good fit. Shorter videos don’t need much. You can easily use your phone to go live on Instagram or Tiktok.
Type of video
If your aim is to come up with a documentary, a long-form video will do the trick. Tutorials and event videos should also be long to capture the details and educate the viewers.
You can choose short-form videos if you want to create customer testimonials or announcements.
Video channel
The channel you upload your video to will determine the length of the videos. For example, you can’t upload a video longer than 3 minutes into TikTok.
And if you are on Instagram, reels can’t last 90 minutes. That means if your audience is on these platforms, you will be forced to create short videos. YouTube allows long-form videos.
Purpose of the video
What do you want to achieve with the video you are creating? If you are looking forward to educating, go for long-form videos and expound on a given topic.
Most videos that talk about a particular challenge, such as how to fix a disabled Facebook ads account, are longer compared to an Instagram story. If you aim to announce something, such as a new product or offer, create a short video.
The benefits of short-form video marketing
Short-form videos have a ton of benefits today.
Here are some of them:
They are easy to remember
Short videos are easier to remember compared to longer videos. It is just like watching a TV commercial. Shorter and more concise commercials are easy to remember compared to longer ones. It’s easy to remember a unique customer testimonial since it’s short.
Easy to distribute
With the recent advancement, it’s now easy to repurpose an ad into a short video and vice versa. You can distribute the short videos on your social media platforms, blog, and even email. You can also use them on your landing page.
Your viewers have a short attention span
Nowadays, the attention span of viewers is dwindling. They will only watch a video if it’s compelling enough. Comedy videos get higher engagement than most videos because it draws attention and captures the essence of what social media is all about.
Shorter videos are more effective compared to long videos. They fit right into the average attention span of most viewers.
They are ideal for social media
Your social media tribe is different since they are there to be entertained. That’s why most social media platforms don’t allow long videos. YouTube is different from other social platforms because it is also dubbed an education platform.
Tiktok doesn’t allow videos longer than 3 minutes. That’s the same thing with Instagram reels. Therefore, creating shorter videos will fit in the right with most of the social media needs.
You can repurpose them
You can create a written text from a short video and use the ad on your email or landing page copy. It’s easy to repurpose most of the short videos compared to long ones that will take longer. When you are looking for a uniform marketing strategy, leverage a short form video to help you achieve that.
Short-form video trends to consider
You now know the benefits of short-form videos in enhancing brand recognition, increasing engagement rates, and spurring business growth. But which types of trends should you join in when looking forward to crafting a video-marketing strategy?
Here are some to consider:
Memes
Do you often create memes? I’m talking about professional business memes that bring about that personal touch to your brand. When asked what makes a short video shareable to their audiences, 21% of respondents said they like videos that entertain them.
Your audience is on social media to catch up on the latest events, connect with friends and relatives, and get entertained by their favorite influencers. That means a meme can satisfy one of such needs. It’s no wonder that big brands now employ this marketing technique when creating marketing videos.
Promotions
A promotion is giving out discounts and coupon codes to customers with the hope that they will make more purchases. You can essentially create videos and run marketing promotion messages on different social media platforms.
The thing with sales is it should make the customer feel smart. It should feel like the customer has made a great sale. If you have had customers on the fence about whether to make a purchase, a short promotional video can do the trick.
Live streaming
The easiest way to get users to interact with your brand is to go live. Since users can ask questions in real time, it’s more geared toward product releases and promotions. It’s a growing trend that you ought to consider as a brand.
Big brands are now leveraging influencers to push their products. One of the things they do is encourage them to do live streaming. The influencers will often announce beforehand and give out takeaways to people who attend it.
To succeed in this, you will need to pull in a sizeable audience, which will only happen if you plan beforehand. Have incentives, too. Give discounts to the people who comment or like your posts. The engagements will bring in sales.
How-to tutorials
Most products on Alibaba have a how-to video. It’s essentially a short video explaining how a customer can use your product to solve his challenges. It shows the product’s features, price, and selling proposition.
You will need to do heavy editing here to reduce the video length but maintain the quality and purpose. These types of videos are also on the rise regarding recipes and cooking. Use them to showcase your cooking abilities and promote your services.
Customer reviews
After working with someone on a project, they could often choose to give a review of how you have helped them. Most coaches nowadays choose to give access to a few people in exchange for customer reviews to be published on their sales funnel. That means it’s an essential content type.
If you have a product, go for short customer review videos and publish them on your social media channels and website. They can work wonders in driving leads and sales. But one thing to note is choosing only the best reviews.
If it’s a product, go with reviews of customers who have a deep knowledge of it and can compel another customer to make a purchase.
User-generated content
One example of these type of content is when an influencer tags your brand along in their videos. Some product review influencers might review your product once in a while. The user-generated content does an excellent job of enhancing the trust and credibility of your products.
You can even repurpose this type of content into an ad or use it on your social media. Since these are everyday people talking about a product they like, the customers will more likely find them trustworthy and relate to it.
What are the best platforms for short-form video platforms?
There are products purposely created for short videos. So, don’t create a long video if your audience is on any of these platforms.
Here are some of the short video marketing channels:
YouTube shorts
One of the things that YouTube noted in the past few years was that it was losing its audience to TikTok and Instagram because people didn’t want to watch longer videos on the platform. That’s why it came up with the YouTube shorts feature.
The feature was released in September 2020 and has since been installed on the YouTube app. It even allows you to edit and trim videos right on the platform.
It’s a great way to share quick updates about your long-form videos and announce when you will drop a new video to your audience.
TikTok
The platform has a unique ‘discover’ tab that unveils trending dance challenges, videos, and songs on the application. It’s currently the most popular Millennial population platform, with most users below 29 years old.
The TikTok algorithm measures your interaction with videos and understands your interest. It then sends other videos that match your interest to your feed.
That’s why it is easy to trend on TikTok. Most businesses are yet to realize the potential that the platform offers. But as for you, you should take the jump as soon as you can.
Magisto
The platform isn’t a social app or website but a video creation platform. It was recently acquired by Vimeo, which is another video creation company.
Since it’s an AI video creation software, it makes the art of producing short-form videos easy. After uploading the unedited videos and choosing an editing style, the software will do its trick. You can then distribute the video on your social media channels.
Instagram reels
For an Instagram users, it’s almost hard these days to sleep without watching a few reels before bedtime. It’s almost like the ‘discover’ tab on TikTok but contains only videos (Instagram is a photo and video platform). You can also check the song, check out the reels using that song, and save it to use later.
Instagram harbors about 200 million users. That means a broader customer base could see your reels. And since the reels are short video content, the customers are more likely to comment and share the videos.
If you use a unique sound, other content creators can use the same sound and drive traffic to your reel.
Wistia
This is yet another great platform to create and distribute short-video content to your audience. It allows you to host a video, embed the link to play right on your site or blog post, and track the overall performance based on audience interactions.
It’s not a social media channel but a video creation and hosting platform. That means you will need to build an audience yourself. It would do better if you had an email list or launched ads on Google or Facebook.
Hippo video
The platform is one of the best for running video marketing campaigns. It has the tools and the features to help you succeed in taking short-form video content beyond social media marketing. You can create, edit, and distribute videos right on the platform.
If you have a new product, your marketing team can decide to use the platform to create a short video, send it to your current customers, and include a link to a booking page. You can then track all the analytics and optimize your campaigns.
How to create short-form videos: Top tips
Would you want to create compelling and highly-performing short-form videos? Here are some tips for doing that:
Understand your audience
What does your audience data say about your recent video content? What was the engagement and click-through rate? You will need to understand these if you are to create winning videos.
You will often have to create various types of videos before understanding what your audience really wants. Audience data is the first key to a successful video creation and marketing strategy.
Start with proven video types
There are already different types of videos that are deemed to perform well. Don’t reinvent the while. You can leverage what other creators are doing and get the ball rolling.
Here are some proven short-video types you can create today:
All these can work well for almost any brand. They also don’t require a lot of planning and budgeting. Some will simply need a phone and a good lighting to enhance the quality.
Choose the right trends
You will need to jump on the right trends to garner views and increase engagement rates. Not all trends align with what you stand for and believe in as a brand.
That means the trending TikTok challenges and sounds need to align with your brand before you jump. Always join trends that communicate and enhance your brand’s values.
Trigger emotions and spur interest
Your short-form videos should capture the emotions of your audience. They should get interested in what you are talking about and watch the video to the end. Emotions such as FOMO are great at driving engagements and leads.
Create high-quality videos
Your video quality matter when it comes to the success of your brand. Poor-quality videos will get low engagement and hence low sales and business growth. High-quality videos will translate to more engagements and increased sales.
Be consistent
Nothing great has ever been achieved without some form of consistency. The more you post new videos daily for your audience, the higher the engagement rates.
Social media channels favor consistent content creators. The algorithm will rank your channel higher if you be consistent in your video creation.
Track, measure, and optimize
You need to keep measuring the success of your video content. Most short-video channels have analytics to analyze and measure your progress. Utilize that data to measure and optimize for growth.
Conclusion
I hope this short form vs Long form video content guide has helped you to understand that video content is the way to go for online brands and businesses.
With short-from videos, you can increase reach, engagements, and leads coming your way.
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