Breaking the Short Video MYTH

It's time to break the Short Video Myth.

Audiences ARE watching branded videos and stories that are longer than 60 seconds.

What?!?!

"But but but my social media strategist tells me that I can't make anything longer than 60 seconds because nobody has the attention span to.... oh look a butterfly!"

During the workday, 30 to 60-second videos rule.

When relaxing and especially in the evenings, audiences use their mobile devices and connected TVs to engage in 30, 60, 90-minute video programming. Not just the big streamers, but YouTube, Vimeo and more.

If you don't have a body of longer format content you are missing a huge opportunity to engage an audience in your brand story. The more you can engage an audience and keep them in your ecosystem, the more likely you are to not only convert them over to your brand but to also gain social advocates.

Don't fall for the myth, your content strategy should go short AND long.

Full transcript, apologies for typos.

0:00 I want to talk about the short video myth. The myth that everything that you produce has to be no more than 60 seconds because, you know, that's all the time people are spending these days on the phone and they're flipping through and if I make something longer, nobody's gonna watch it.

0:16 You know what, that's actually a myth that's wrong. People are engaged and watching longer videos, okay, during the workday, yes, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, 30 and 60 second videos all day long. Because look, I'm at work. I'm doing my work. And now I just want to see what's going on in this thing. Okay, cool.

0:34 But guess what, at lunchtime, I don't want to be flipping through 30 and 60-second videos, I want to put my phone down. I want to see 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes so I can just put the phone and watch while I'm eating. That's a longer format video.

0:47 At night, people are watching 30, 60, 90 minutes on their mobile devices usually an iPad, and especially if you have a streaming device on your television, watching longer programming. And if all you've got is 30 and 60 seconds, you're giving up a sizable potential audience. Especially, you know if you got YouTube set up with the ads, so I'm watching a 15-second ad before your 30-second video, how long, how long do you think I'm going to keep doing that before I switch off. So if all you're offering your audience, 30 and 60 seconds, you're missing out on a huge opportunity to tell your story.

1:25 I'll give you a great example. The Cruise Line industry, I love to cruise. If you know me at all, you know I love to be on a cruise ship. Every major cruise line has 30 and 60-second videos on their YouTube channels. That's pretty much it. Maybe a two-minute video if you're lucky.

1:45 However, if you go over to cruise vloggers say like Cruising with Ben and David. They've got 15, 20, 30, 40-minute videos. We will sit and watch that at night we want to relax. I don't want to keep watching 30-second videos so guess what? Official Cruise Line channel I'm switching away from you and I'm gonna go watch a vlogger who's going to give me 30 or 40 minutes in Cozumel. The Cruise Line tells me all about Cozumel in 30 seconds. That really doesn't tell a lot, right? I mean really you can tell me everything about a destination in 30 seconds?

2:18 I mean think about it. Destinations are a travel show. I mean cruise lines go there all the time, every ship is going to Cozumel. You have an opportunity to create multiple episodes 5, 10, 15, 30-minute travel episodes around you know, Cozumel, the Bahamas, the Mediterranean, Greece, everywhere that you go. You are a travel series, why not make 5, 10, 20, 30-minute episodes. So at night when I'm relaxing. I go to the cruise channel, guess what I'm staying on that cruise channel because I want to see all of these destinations. I want to go behind the scenes in the ship. Learn about your people. You know, you can do five and 10-minute episodes about the personnel and you got thousands of people working on these ships. And there's probably a lot of interesting stories.

3:11 You can create cooking shows around all of your chefs, how many chefs are on all of these ships that you can do cooking shows and teach me how to cook and keep me engaged for 5, 10, 15, 20 minutes. Staying on your channel.

3:27 30 and 60 second videos are great for the workday. Twitter, Instagram, Tic Tok, Facebook. Yeah, just kind of use those as a billboard as a tease. So I know that when the day is over. Oh, I saw that that chef making, that really cool thing. I wonder what else he's making. Let me go look at the YouTube channel tonight when I get home and be engaged.

3:48 So the myth that everybody is only watching 30 and 60 seconds because of short attention span. That's true during the day. That's true when I'm sitting at the airport. That's true when I'm waiting for my doctor's appointment. Just watching short stuff. But when I'm relaxing, I don't want to watch 30 and 60-second videos.

4:08 There's a huge audience out there that does not want to watch 30 and 60-second videos when they are relaxing. They want to relax, they want to be entertained. So create longer content that will keep the audience engaged in what you have to say and engaged in your story.