In the world of marketing your businesses with video, there is one main differentiator we need to consider when it comes to distribution – we should think about the platform we’re sharing the content on, and allow that platform to inform our video length.
A marketing video should always start as a long format wide orientation. This will live on YouTube, which can then be embedded on your website.
People still watch wide long form content, it just needs to be presented in the right way. YouTube is optimal for this.
From here, we’ll want to cut up the video into 2 shorter vertical versions. These versions will be (1) 1 minute and (2) 15 seconds.
Both of these versions will be placed on Facebook and Instagram – at separate times, anywhere from 1 week to 1 month apart. By restructuring the video lengths, we can get more use out of the content itself, and we can adhere to the viewing habits of the general public.
Audiences on Instagram and Facebook generally want to quickly flick through a series of short reels – 15 seconds to be precise.
Now, when it comes to your business – it’s tough to get your point across in just 15 seconds, isn’t it? The edit should be concise and straight to the point. And it is kind of good news when it comes to your investment.
Say we have a full length video that’s around 5 to 10 minutes long. Once we have that edit done, we can mine it for all these little tiny bits of 15 second gold that people like to consume.
Now, the 1 minute versions of videos are still good to present as well. People still do watch these, and they still perform well on the platforms – but lean away from using them as Facebook ads.
Facebook video ads now recommend that our videos are 15 seconds in length – which makes sense. For the past several months, whenever I’d run 3 test ads against each other – the photo ad would outperform the 1 minute videos.
So, the key takeaways to remember when we’re talking about optimal marketing video lengths is to divvy up your video lengths and use each version for each separate platform.
Long form wide videos go on YouTube and can be embedded on your website, 15 second versions get posted organically and are used as ads, and 1 minute versions are only posted organically – not as ads.
One bonus tip I’d like to throw in is this: make sure your video takes up the entire screen vertically. I’m sure you’ve seen those videos where the video itself is a square, and the top and bottom has a blur effect on it.
In my opinion, it looks cheap – and over the past several months we’ve experienced enough instances where it seems to have actually worked against the video.
Optimally, we want to take up the entire vertical screen. If this isn’t possible due to composition issues, then only leave small black bars on the top and the bottom of the video – stay away from the blur effect.
And that’s it, that’s all. Make sure your social media management team is keeping in touch with the optimal lengths of videos for your marketing efforts – the answers will always be in the data.
To Your Success,
Jay Ashcroft
four32 MEDIA
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