How to Take Advantage of Short Length Social Media Content

Social media has become a very dynamic platform for businesses and consumers to interact on. Because social media is frequented so often, companies now have specific strategies used to promote their products and services. These strategies look at what is doing well on various platforms to decide what type of content to create.

Social media as a whole has evolved a lot since its creation, and videos are maintaining a growth rate of 11% per year. In particular, there has been an explosion in the popularity of short-length videos. This is due, in part, to the popularity of TikTok and its one-minute videos and other platforms’ dedicated short-length features such as Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts. With these videos being only 1 minute long and in very high demand, it’s clear that short-length videos should be used in your marketing strategy. As a social media content creation agency, we understand the importance of this and will break down why short videos are doing well and how you can begin to implement them into your content creation. 

Cutting to the chase – Why shorter is better

As we’ve stated previously, the rise of TikTok has gotten consumers very comfortable with short and fast-paced content. In fact, the most shared videos are between 30 seconds and 1 minute. This length makes people able to consume a lot more content in a very short amount of time and it has grown to be the preferred way of consuming content. Additionally, people’s attention spans have shortened very significantly. Social media is all about instant gratification and many give a video only about 10 seconds until they decide to move on to the next piece of content. 

Shorter content is also easier to distribute and repurpose. With a well-designed short video, you don’t have to worry about any time limits different platforms may have and you can easily repurpose the content at a later date. Users’ feeds are constantly changing, which makes repurposing content easier to do.

Short-length videos are also pushing creators to make their content memorable, which is very important when it comes to promoting a product or service. The obstacle of time pushes creativity as you want to figure out how you can effectively engage your audience in a short amount of time (The goal is to engage the viewer enough to motivate action such as buying your product or visiting your website). 

Many of the short-length platforms are more accessible than traditional video-sharing apps, as it is very user friendly. Additionally, Instagram Reels and TikTok have made it very easy for creators to attach auto-generated captions to their videos so that anyone is able to consume their content. 

Short Form in Action

To get a better understanding of the impact of short videos, particularly on Instagram Reels, here is how the National Basketball Association has begun to use the feature.  

20 out of 30 NBA teams are now using Reels and have seen a 22% increase in engagement compared to their standard Instagram posts or stories. In particular, the Houston Rockets have gained 11.7 million plays across 5 videos. 

How to implement

You’ve seen why short-form content is doing so well, but how do you start to implement it? Creating short content that will be successful for your business has to depend on what message you want to convey and how you can effectively engage consumers. One of the easiest ways to gain visibility is by participating in a trend. Whether that be a popular dance or specific audio, people like seeing how others put their own spin on a very well-liked style. You can also seek guidance from a social media content creation agency. They will be able to create a personalized social media strategy that integrates short-form videos into your feeds. 

The bottom line. People are looking to be satisfied in a very short amount of time at a very high frequency so it’s imperative that you capture your target audiences’ attention quickly and get your point across. Users can be very easily distracted on social media while browsing so you don’t want to waste any time while a user is consuming your content.