It’s one of the questions we’re most often asked: How long should my video be? While there is no concrete answer, we live by a simple rule at our Seattle video production and content creation company — the shorter the better. And there are several reason for that.
The first and most important reason is your audience. It’s a fact that most people have a very short attention span. At Moarly Creative, we always push to keep our videos between one and two minutes — three minutes is about as long as we’ll ever go. Wistia looked at more than 1.3 billion views on its platform and found two minutes (or shorter) to be the “sweet spot.”
The reality is that a three-minute story can usually be told in two minutes. And truthfully, a video tends to be more powerful squeezed into a tight package. It’s simply better storytelling. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes longer videos are necessary. That typically falls into the educational or how-to category, though. If you have a six-minute piece of content, I would suggest breaking that up into two three-minute segments. It’s much more consumable that way.
On the other side of things, if you can tell an awesome story in 30 seconds, then tell your story in 30 seconds. Most viral videos sit between 30-45 seconds. And let’s be real, who doesn’t want their video to go viral?
Ask yourself this question: how long am I willing to sit and watch a video? That’s really important. Watch what other people are putting together. There’s a really good chance you start to lose your focus and/or interest around a minute and a half to two minutes. If you aren’t willing to sit through a four-minute video, then why would you make content that long?
One of the biggest no-nos in video production is making a video longer just for the sake of making it longer. You might think a longer video means more information, and more information means the more your audience will takeaway from it. Sorry…that’s not (typically) the way it works. Make content shorter for the sake of making it better, and most importantly, more consumable and engaging.
How would you answer this question: How long should my video be? Please leave a comment below or connect with us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Vimeo. You can also learn more video production and content creation tips and see examples of short, powerful videos on our portfolio.
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