Short-form videos are everywhere nowadays. And, now, as platforms like TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, Google, LinkedIn, and Pinterest expand their short-form offerings, brands are continuing to take notice. But what exactly is a short-form video and what makes them so appealing to brands? Short-form videos are usually between 15–30 seconds and they’re usually used…
Short-form videos are everywhere nowadays. And, now, as platforms like TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, Google, LinkedIn, and Pinterest expand their short-form offerings, brands are continuing to take notice.
But what exactly is a short-form video and what makes them so appealing to brands?
Short-form videos are usually between 15–30 seconds and they’re usually used in social media marketing campaigns. They’re also known as “bumpers,” “bite-sized,” or “snackable.” Often called “soundbites.”
But, what makes these videos so appealing to brands?
Well, for one thing: they’re easy to digest! A lot of people don’t have time for long videos anymore—they just want quick bursts of information that they can watch on their way into work or during their lunch break.
This is why short-form videos are so popular—they allow viewers to get the gist of things quickly without having to sit through a full length video.
Short-form videos also allow brands to connect with their audience in a fun way that isn’t too serious or boring. They’re great for grabbing attention because they’re unexpected and unconventional compared to other types of content (like blog posts).
If you’re looking to increase your brand’s reach, you should consider investing in short-form video.
As a study by Wyzowl found, people share videos at twice the rate of any other form of content. And 84% of people are convinced to buy a product or service based on a brand’s video.
So, we already know video content is increasingly becoming an important part of every brand’s content marketing strategy. But when we look at short-form video specifically, the data (gathered from the HubSpot Blog’s 2021 Social Media Trends report and 2022 Video Marketing Report) speak for themselves:
- Short-form ranks #1 for lead generation and engagement.
- Marketers will invest more in short-form video than any other content format in 2022.
- Nearly half (47%) of marketers surveyed believe short-form videos are most likely to go viral.
- 54% of marketers surveyed say their companies leverage short-form videos
So short form content is an essential part of your marketing strategy. Here are practical ways to use short form video content.
Educational or Explainer Media
For many years, brands have been trying to connect with audiences through short-form videos. And it’s worked! In fact, Wyzowl found that 73% of viewers prefer short-form video content over long-form content.
But what kind of short-form video content are they watching? Well, I’m glad you asked!
According to Wyzowl’s 2020 report, “viewers want to see more educational content.” In fact, 32% of marketers surveyed in our social media trends report say they currently leverage educational content and 57% of those who do say it’s one of the most effective content types.
So why is educational content so popular? Because it helps audiences in their day-to-day lives. Brands that make education a priority in their marketing strategy can improve lead generation and build stronger brand loyalty.
Similarly, explainer videos target users who are at the decision-making stage of the buyer’s journey and, if done right, they can turn decision-makers into customers. It’s a win-win situation: Brands get to address their audience’s pain points and offer solutions, which is (surprise!) them!
User-Generated Content (UGC)
UGC is a winning strategy because it’s budget-friendly, and it evokes emotion.
We know that UGC can influence your purchasing decisions more than brand- or influencer-generated content. That’s why we’ve created, MarketScale Studio, a platform that allows you to share your authentic life experiences with the world.
We want you to be able to tell your story in the ways you want to tell it—and we want you to be able to do it without any of the hassle associated with creating content for social media. One great thing is that most short form video content and user generated content can be created on a mobile device. Follow this link to check out another great video if you are interesting in learning more about how to shoot video with an iPhone.
We believe that when brands share authentic stories from real people, they’re more likely to connect with their audiences and convert them into customers.
Company or Product Updates
Think of all the press releases, marketing campaigns, and other announcements that come from your company… there’s probably a lot.
Why not quickly create a quick video message about any company or product updates and get it published for your community. It’s a more engaging way to talk with your audience, beyond just written content.
And to make this processes even easier, use MarketScale Studio.
MarketScale Studio enables effortless video and podcast recording for B2B companies, helping subject matter experts create and share content with full marketing department approval.
The strategies and tips above should help you get the most out of your video marketing strategy, no matter how much time and money you’re able to invest. Many of these approaches can be used simultaneously, and some of them may apply more to certain types of businesses or brands.
But one thing is for certain: you can start today on your journey of short-form video content creation to engage your community and grow your business.
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Video TranscriptExpand ↓
So you want to market your company and grow your community with video, but you think it's gonna take up way too much of your time. Maybe it already has. Well, that's because you need to focus on short form, not long form video content. Welcome to In the studio, where I help you build an engaged community. With media. This is a show where you will learn how to produce your own videos, podcasts, virtual events, online universities and more for your company. When you show up in the studio, you become a media company, and you grow your communities and your business, creating videos for your business is a tried and true way to boost engagement with your community. In fact, it can increase conversion rates, email, click through rates, brand association, and audience engagement, engaging with your community. So if you're in the business of helping other businesses, as a marketing leader, and you feel like all your media creation has been a total time's up with little to no results or you've avoided consistent media creation altogether. When you know in your gut, that you need it working in your business, then you're in the right place. When it comes to short versus long form video content. There's really no winner. It's not an either or question, but rather you need both because short form content is well shorter, it will take you and your team less time to create. So let's start there short form videos are usually 10 minutes or less. While longer videos are longer than 10 minutes, you'll see a lot of short form videos on social media, you'll typically see longer videos on businesses, websites or on Youtube at market scale. We leverage both links short form through our daily media creation and long form through hosted media on our site and client sites for virtual events and podcasts. So to save time by creating short form video content, here's some things to consider. First, your community your media is all for and about your community. That includes business partners, customers, clients, members of your team, your employees, and when you can know who your communities are, then you can know what content what type of content you need to go to create. And your community will tell you the types of media that they're looking for the types of stories that don't engage with sometimes that may look like a simple video that you share through email announcing a new product or company update. Other times it may be highlighting an onboarding process that requires long form video content through your internal network here at market skill. As mentioned, we enjoy and use both short form and long form content. And we do so based on knowing the types of people and community members that we are speaking to, we often do for ourselves and of course for our many clients host virtual broadcasts and events, to podcast recordings, and online universities for a product education or onboarding training lessons. You name it short form video content usually runs through our platform called Market scale studio through market scale studio, our community is able to create content, daily podcasts, videos, you name it to be published to reach their communities. So it's all about the people and the humans behind your communities that you should consider when it comes to short or long form video content. The next thing to consider is your purpose. I hit on this a little bit but understand what purpose this piece of video content is supposed to serve. Because when you can know the purpose that you can know hey, this works best, in short form less than 10 minutes or this works best in long form where we're having more of a conversation or training opportunity. And then knowing the purpose you can know what action you need your community to take after watching or listening and engaging with your media is it to attend a virtual event is it to buy a product or service of yours is it to simply feel more connected to the community that you're building. So identify that purpose. The third one is consider your video type. There are many types of videos out there, maybe it's an event video, maybe it's a documentary style video, maybe it's a product education video, maybe it's a 3d video that demonstrates all of the workings of your unique product when you can know that type of video that you want and need. Then you can know whether it could be short form or long form most video types can exist as short form and then know your channel. This is number four, your channel will help guide how you can deliver it to your community, but also how it should be formatted. Social media often invites and encourages short form content based on where your community spends their time online should be the channel that you choose. Of course there are more direct channel was like your website, or email, which is where you can publish any type and any length of video content. And then number five is your budget, know how much marketing spend that you have available to invest in your community building in the purpose around your video content, what purpose and goal it needs to serve the types of videos you look to create the channel, your your publishing to and promoting on. And then that is all wrapped up into the budget that you need. I highly recommend investing always in community building efforts. There's a reason why there's so many social media platforms that exist and that so many people spend their time on social media. It's a place to gather as a member of a community to have conversations to consume and create content that connects and that engages you personally or professionally. So when you can invest and put a budget towards community building, the natural next step is that hey, in order to build a community, I need people to know about this community through media videos, podcasts, online education. So let's recap. We talked about five key areas to consider when it comes to identifying whether you need short form or long form video content. And from the onset, I said focus on short form content. And that's because short form content requires less time from you and your team less resources, less budget, and you can create more of them. So if you're feeling stuck on well, you know, video content takes so much time it doesn't have to invest first and short from content, spend five seconds, 15 seconds, five minutes, and capture videos and podcast recordings and messages that help connect with and build your community. And as you do that, let me know how it goes. Comment down below on your efforts to build an engaged community with media whether that's with short form, or long form video content. For more media like this, subscribe to the show wherever you enjoy listening or watching and for info about how we can help you grow your communities with media visit market scale.com That's rap. I'll see you in the studio in the next episode.
