People spend 6 hours and 48 minutes watching online videos every week. They stream video content to the TV, watch on mobile devices, and through social media networks.
Video marketing is the best way to reach a new audience, build brand awareness, and increase sales.
The challenge is getting people to watch the entire video. Most people make videos that are too long. People tune out pretty quickly.
If you’re getting started in video marketing, you need to know the top video marketing tips.
You need to know how long videos should be, how to get people to watch, and how to get the most impact from video marketing.
Are you ready to learn more about creating engaging video content?
Keep reading to discover how to make videos that give you the most bang for your buck.
How Long Should Your Marketing Video Be?
Instead of asking yourself how long your marketing video should be, you need to start with other questions.
The purpose of the video tells you where you’ll publish the video. The purpose also helps you define the length of the video.
For example, you need to create employee training videos. These videos get stored in the cloud or on internal networks. Since these are training videos, they need to be longer and in-depth to get the content across.
You could have a one-hour training video. This can get edited down to six 10 minute video modules. That’s enough to retain attention and give employees a chance to digest important content.
Time Limits for Social Media Videos
On the other hand, if you’re producing social media videos, the length gets dictated by the social network.
YouTube videos tend to be a different type of social media video. If you have a verified YouTube account, you can upload videos that are 12 hours long. An unverified account is only limited to 15 minutes.
The purpose of the video and the audience decide how long your video should be. If you’re posting highlights of a gaming session, you might keep it to 10 minutes.
A YouTube Short is limited to 60 seconds. You can make a workout video that’s 45 minutes long.
Instagram Video Lengths
Instagram video lengths depend on the type of post. Instagram Stories allows video clips to be 15 seconds long. You can post four clips together for a maximum time limit of 60 seconds.
Instagram Reels are up to 60 seconds long. Are you posting to your newsfeed? It has to be at least three seconds long.
You have up to 10 minutes for a news feed video. Some accounts have up to 60 minutes.
Facebook Video Length
Even though Facebook and Instagram are owned by the same company, their video specs are slightly different.
Facebook videos give you up to 240 minutes. The only exceptions are Stories and in-stream ads.
Stories are anywhere between one and 120 seconds. For those doing in-stream ad videos, you have 5 seconds to 10 minutes.
TikTok Videos
TikTok’s rise during the pandemic created the demand for short-form videos. At first, you only had 15 seconds to tell your story.
That jumped to 3 minutes last year. Now, the social media platform said users can upload videos that are up to 10 minutes long.
Twitter Videos
Most accounts on Twitter have a limit of 140 seconds. Ad accounts may be able to post 10-minute videos.
You can turn your account into an ad account. It might not be worth it unless you plan to promote a video as part of a larger marketing campaign.
How to Create Engaging Video Content
Just because you can upload a video that’s 240 minutes long, doesn’t mean that you should. You have to make sure that people will watch it.
Not many people will sit through a video that long if they don’t have a good reason to.
You want to have the right video length for your audience. This is where research comes into play. You need to know your target audience very well.
Think about things that would capture their interest. Be sure to consider where they find your marketing videos.
If they search for something on Google or YouTube, they’re trying to find a solution to a problem. Otherwise, they’re just scrolling through. You need to take this into account when you create your video.
Get Attention Instantly
Your introduction has to capture attention. According to https://www.1minutemedia.com.au/, the best social media videos communicate emotions right away.
Spend a few minutes on your favorite social media networks. Scroll through your news feed.
Did you stop to watch any videos? If you did, think about what made you stop to watch it. Those are elements you may want to incorporate into your video.
If someone finds your video through a search, you have to take a different approach. The introduction lets viewers know they’re in the right place to get the information they’re looking for.
Tell people who you are, what you’re about to cover, and why they want to stick around. Again, watch some of the top YouTubers and see how they handle their introductions.
The Production Quality
The production quality determines if your brand gets taken seriously or not. You don’t need to spend big bucks on an in-home production studio.
You do need to have quality video, great sound, and good lighting. Fortunately, you can accomplish all of these with your phone.
Get an external microphone to make sure you get excellent sound quality. That matters more to viewers than anything else.
The Top Video Marketing Tips
Video marketing is one of the top ways to grow your brand. As these video marketing tips showed, you need to know your audience and platform to create engaging video content.
Now that you know how to create short promotional videos, check out the blog for more digital marketing tips.