It’s an interesting question. What’s better for a YouTube video — short content or longer form videos?
It doesn’t seem that there is a lot of middle ground — marketers have strong opinions on this one and it doesn’t appear that there is a lot of middle ground
You either firmly believe that videos need to be 1-2 minutes (or even shorter) or you think that video lengths of 5 or 10 minutes (or more) is perfectly fine. And that’s without the added discussion of a 6 second Vine video or a 15 second Instagram video!
According to an article by Dan Lyons on the HubSpot blog, “Six Seconds? Bah. YouTube Says Long Videos Sometimes Work Better,” YouTube, however, is finding shorter isn’t always better.
“It’s kind of counter-intuitive,” says Vanessa Pappas, Global Head of Audience Development at YouTube. “But we’re finding the audience is there for all types of content.
Possibly there’s a shift taking place from thinking of YouTube as a place for snackable content to thinking of it as a place for more engaging content, and more storytelling.”
According to YouTube’s official blog back in May, more than 100 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute, which is more than four days of video uploaded each minute! And very month, more than 1 billion people come to YouTube, which is almost one out of every two people on the Internet.
Average Length of Video Ads is Over 4 Minutes
According to a January article by Brendan Cournoyer on Brainshark.com “There are so many different rules of thumb when it comes to the length of online marketing videos, it’s difficult to come up with a steadfast strategy.”
According to ReelSEO, the average length of the top 10 most shared global video ads is 4 minutes 11 seconds, which helps prove that if your content is compelling, people will spend more time with it.
Other sites, like the folks at Skyworks Marketing, will tell you that video length often depends on the focus of your content (“intro” videos can be as short as 30 seconds, while more detailed content can go as high as 10 minutes in length).
At the end of the day, however, Cournoyer says the most important thing is that your marketing content (video) “is long enough to get your message across sufficiently and include an appropriate call to action,” although he notes that he follows the 2 minute rule for most of his marketing messages.
Meanwhile, according to Wistia, a video hosting service that also provides video tracking, 30-second video clips were viewed by 85% people all the way through while the completion rate was only 50% for videos that were between 2 to 10 minutes in length.
The above Wistia graph shows that shorter videos are better for getting people to watch the whole thing. After all, most business video is created to serve up a pre-packaged message, so the longer the video, the less people will watch. It’s also noticeable that after a certain point the engagement average flattens out — so there’s not a major difference in engagement for a 4-minute versus a 10-minute video.
Clinton Stark of the Stark Insider weighed in on the length of YouTube videos back in February. He says:
The ideal video length on YouTube is between 3 minutes and 3 and-a-half minutes. That’s what a couple of Google researchers from the YouTube team told me when they visited me a few months ago at our Silicon Valley office.
Stark also adds that the real answer is: “it depends.”
There’s a number of factors that should go into your thought process when thinking about video length. And according to the Pew Research Center local news stories are 41 seconds long on average. Evening news come in longer at 2 minutes and 23 minutes.
But here’s perhaps the most concise — and best(?) — answer. And it comes from Stark, who said, “Some will watch a video through to the end, others will stop after 15 seconds if nothing grabs interest, while (most) will fast forward (making the beginning and end of a video particularly important).”
How do You Know What Length is Right?
That’s the easy part of the equation.
Just look at your analytics for your YouTube videos. When are customers abandoning your videos? Then use this information to better determine how long (or short) your videos should be.
Also, make different length videos — some short and some longer. Look at which ones get more views?
And of course, you can always ask your video viewers. On your next video, ask the question and get some feedback. The more data points you have the better.
So Where Do I Stand on “Perfect Video Length”?
First, let me say that I don’t think you should make your video long(er) just for the sake of making it a certain length. If it takes you 70 second, 7 minutes or 17 minutes to tell me your story — and it’s not boring or stupid or redundant — then that should be the length of your video.
Bottom line… if the content is good and it’s relevant to solving a pain point for your customers, they will watch — regardless of the length — and so will I. So go ahead… start making longer videos!
How do you feel? Leave a comment below and share what you think is the perfect video length. And be sure to check out my YouTube channel.
