Short videos are all the rage, but long-form videos are here to stay

There is no denying that videos form the crux of the current content creation renaissance. Whether it’s showing off a fun day out with your friends on social media, marketing and promoting your small business or even trying to sell your million-dollar startup idea - moving images possess an engagement power like no other medium. While extensive long-form video content has been around on platforms like Youtube for a while, it is the emergence of swift, crisp and short-form video content that has taken the virtual world by storm. Starting with Vines and TikTok and quickly emerging on Instagram Reels and Youtube Shorts, the evolution of quick video content over the last five years has been nothing ‘short’ of fascinating.

How different are short-form videos from long-form videos? Well, to start, short videos are far more concise and impactful when compared to the latter. According to video marketing statistics collected by HubSpot in 2021, 5% of the viewers get disinterested, and 60% of them stop watching the video after the first and second minute, respectively. This easily accessible content is more retentive and comes to the rescue for those who wish to get all the information they need in under a minute. Short-form content has been effective in increasing engagement now more than ever for marketing and content creation purposes. But are short-form videos truly as effective as they are engaging to the audience? Consuming news and other information in small portions decreases one’s attention span in the long run and encourages consumers to consume content with a lack of depth. 

Now, the world might be head over heels in love with byte-sized content, but long-form videos run a different regime. In this format of videos, one can elaborately give importance to every aspect of the content produced- sans the restrictions of time. Long-form allows one to incorporate more information and hence increases the credibility of the message to the audience. On the technical front, long-form happens to be crucial for improving search engine rankings on the web, an aspect that is imperative yet almost absent in short-form video creation. 

We could debate at length about the pros and cons of the two sides of new-age content consumption. However, the verdict eventually boils down to the subject in hand, vis-à-vis the audience and the final marketing objective. 

Like everything else that the coronavirus pandemic has altered, consumption of long-form content has also gained a substantial increase in overall watch time.

Total Daily Hours of Video Watched on YouTube: 1 Billion Hours (Source)

Total number of daily YouTube shorts views: 6.5 Billion (Source)

Number of Videos Watched per Day on YouTube: 1 Billion Videos (Source)

Hours of Video Uploaded per Minute on YouTube: 500 (Source)

While watching a dozen reels on Instagram might be fun at the moment, it cannot impact you the same way a 20-minute video discusses a topic of interest. Short videos are all the rage, but long-form videos are just as pertinent and definitely, here to stay.