For a long time, we’ve been told social videos need to be short.
The thinking is that social media is used to fill “in-between moments” (at the bus stop, the lunch break etc) when audiences don’t have time for long content, and are watching in “lean forward” mode not “lean back”. Besides, the argument goes, no one has a long attention span these days.
There is some truth to how audiences often want snackable content on social media. And there are also times when a long running-time can put you off, even when you know it will be good. (1 hour and 48 minutes Natalie!?)
But on the other hand, the trend on YouTube is towards longer videos, Facebook says it wants longer videos (and typically when a video starts on Facebook it doesn’t show the viewer how long it is) and as for the attention span thing, it turns out it’s a myth, part — at least in my opinion — of the media panic around social media.
Fundamentally, my thinking is that if something is engaging or interesting audiences will keep watching. In other words, it’s not how long a video is that’s important, it’s how good it is.
Now it’s worth saying, giving a filmmaker a time limit can push them to make it better. I can think of times when an exec’s insistence I take off another minute from a film has, despite deep pain for me, meant a stronger final film. It works because it forces me to think hard about what the best parts are and lose the rest.
For this reason, I have sympathy with a creative leader who, lacking time to give detailed feedback on every video, might give a time limit as a way to push their team to improve. But this is a crude way to improve your output.
The other thought worth bearing in mind is that, while abandoining a fictional work usually means it was rubbish, I don’t think this is necessarily true of nonfiction.
I can think of many times when I watched part of a video, learnt something of interest, and then clicked away to something else, perfectly happy with my experience.
After all, do you read every newspaper all the way through? Do you read every article all the way through? Skipping away doesn’t mean you got no value from something.
In fact, if your purpose is to find out about a topic, it’s not unusual to see diminishing returns the longer you engage with it. This often happens when I read nonfiction books. I learn a lot in the first chapter, a bit less in the second, proportionately less in the chapter after that, and so on.
Sadly, algorithms don’t (as best we know) see things this way. If people click away long before the end of your video that’s usually bad news as it means a poor “completion rate”.
But even if this is the case, this is an argument for thinking about scripting, suspense and structure, not simply slapping a time limit on everything you make.
Besides, although everyone gets excited about the short video of TikTok, Reels and so on, some of the most fun innovation in internet video has been with really (really) long video.
Out of curiosity, what are the stats for autoplay vs click to play? I’ve always found that those who actually click to start the video are far more likely to watch it all the way though. I’ve often thought video length is a fallacy online, if your content is engaging enough for the audience they’ll watch long videos. The problem is convincing people to watch it in the first place.