Are you one of those people who believe that, these days, people will only watch, at the most, a two or three minute video? In this Vlog Grant explains that that really isn’t the case.
It’s very fashionable, these days, to say that no-one engages in long form content anymore, but it isn’t true. For example, people still read books – ‘long form content’ . Cinemas doing really well, but feature films are long form content. And what about binge-watching, devoting hours and hours of time to one show? That’s a modern phenomena. And if you’re watching episodes of a show for six or seven hours, that is long form content. So on that basis, why is it that if you’re making video, for example, for your website, people would you for it to be short? Of course it’s not wrong to be doing short form content, but you have to understand the reasons behind it.
Firstly, we’re so bombarded by information, we just don’t know what to give our time to. Everybody wants all the answers immediately. Why do I want to watch a 20 minute video if I can find a 45 second one that gives me the answers that I need?
Secondly, and even more importantly, no one’s going to invest a lot of their time in something they’re not sure is going to be valuable. Think of it like a film trailer. You wouldn’t necessarily watch a two hour feature film without seeing the one minute trailer first. It’s the one minute trailer that wets your appetite, and gives you an idea that it’s going to be worthwhile investing a further two hours watching the movie.
The way to think of it is in terms of information architecture. In other words, someone will listen to your hour podcast or engage with your 45 minute Webinar, but in order to do so, they may need to see the one minute informational video first, that encourages them to give the time to the longer form content.
And now you’ve seen this brief introduction, please stay with me where for the next four hours, I will unpack this further.
