Exploring Short-Form Videos for Content Marketing

If you’ve spent any time on social media, you have probably noticed a huge increase in short-form videos. Audience’s attentions spans have gotten shorter and shorter, with the average attention span being a whopping 8.25 seconds. Creating short-form videos can help you reach your audience while keeping their attention, and there has never been a better time to get started.

What Are Short Form Videos?

Short-form videos are videos that are under 3 minutes long (although the ideal length for short-form videos is under one minute). Short-form videos are meant to entertain or educate your audience while keeping it short enough that they stay through the whole video. If you have a topic that requires a more in-depth explanation, it is often better to create a series of short-form videos than it is to make a singular long video.

Why You Should Be Using Short Form Video:

Aside from keeping your audience’s attention, short-form videos come with other great benefits. Short-form videos tend to be fairly quick and easy to make, and take less effort than longer videos. Audiences are not expecting high-quality, heavily scripted videos when it comes to short-form. Take the Washington Post’s TikTok account for example. Their videos are short, entertaining, and to the point. Their videos appear to be shot on an iPhone and briefly summarize news stories they have already covered on other platforms, making it a simple and effective way to create content.

Short-form videos are easy for your audience to watch just about any time. During a lunch break, between classes, or while waiting on a friend, short-form videos take up so little time that they are easy to consume anywhere. Aside from convenience for your audience, creating these videos can help you boost your visibility on your social platforms.

An often overlooked benefit of short-form videos is that they help keep you on track with what is important, and encourage you to brand out with entertaining videos! If you want to make an educational or promotional short-form video, you have to focus on what you want to highlight, and what you want to leave out.

Short Form Video Ideas:

Short-form videos are a great opportunity to branch out of your comfort zone! Behind-the-scenes videos can be a great way to connect with your audience and are easy to make in short-form. Showing off the people behind your brand helps your audience feel more connected to you.

Tips and tricks are another popular form of short-form video. From something as simple as how to use your products (even if it seems self-explanatory) to DIYs or creative uses of your products- audiences go to short-form videos to learn more about what they are purchasing.

Keeping an eye on video trends can be a great way to reach your audience and get creative with your videos. Although some video trends might seem like they are geared towards individual users or creators, there are plenty you can adapt to your brand. Aside from showing your audience that you can be silly and keep up with the trends, these videos can be very fun to make!

Overall, short-form videos are low effort with great results. Even if you are not planning on becoming the next TikTok star, there are plenty of other options for short-form videos- Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, and even Facebook and Twitter videos! Short-form videos are meant to be easy and fun, so get creative and engage with your audience for video success.