Integrating both short-form and long-form video is essential for a modern marketing strategy. Video content is a proven method for boosting audience engagement and business performance.
Benefits of Video Marketing:
- Higher conversion rates
- Increased email click-through rates (CTR)
- Stronger brand association
- Improved audience engagement
Defining Short-Form and Long-Form Video
The distinction between video formats is primarily based on duration. Short-form videos are typically under 10 minutes, while long-form videos exceed that mark.
Short-form content is prevalent on social media. For instance, Target uses this format on Instagram to showcase and advertise its products.
Longer videos are usually found on business websites or YouTube. For example, Wistia uses long-form video to provide in-depth education about video production costs.
The Evolution of Video Marketing
Video has become a primary tool for building audience relationships since the early 2000s. While YouTube began as a dating site in 2005, it’s now a dominant search engine and social platform.
YouTube’s Shift to Hybrid Content:
- Long-form focus: Historically, watch time was the key metric, as seen in Apple’s hour-long event videos.
- Short-form introduction: To compete with TikTok and Instagram, YouTube launched Shorts, limiting videos to 60 seconds.
Now, YouTube creators and businesses alike benefit from sharing a mix of long and short content—all on one platform. The wide array of video marketing channels means that your strategy needs to be flexible. Each platform—whether it’s YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, or your website—has its own best practices for video. Choosing to create either short-form videos or long-form videos isn’t really an option if you want your content strategy to be successful in 2023 and beyond. Both long-form and short-form videos have their place in your content plan. Keep reading to learn more about each type of video content and when you should use them for your business.
Your marketing channels
Lastly, where you want to share your videos greatly impacts the decision of short-form vs. long-form video content. As mentioned before, you can stray from the status quo when it comes to what type of content belongs on a certain marketing channel—but only if it works. Some platforms set limits to how long your videos can be. At the time of writing this blog post, Instagram Reels can only be 60 seconds long. TikToks have a 3-minute limit. LinkedIn videos are allowed a 10-minute maximum. On those three platforms, you can’t post long-form video content (yet), no matter how much you want to. If you’re using videos in your ads, you’re also limited by what the platform offers.
Make sure when you’re thinking about the duration of your videos that you first research the platforms where you want to share them. The last thing you want to do is invest in a video that doesn’t work where you want to share it.
