How Long Should A Corporate Video Be?

How long should a corporate video be?

When producing a corporate video , you're striving to hit the optimal video length. Too long and no one will watch to completion on your website, YouTube or Facebook. Too short and you've missed the opportunity to inform. Striking the right balance with your video length will allow you to increase your viewer engagement. So what is the ideal length your corporate or marketing video?

Ultimately, shorter videos see an increase in engagement as well as effective content. Here's what you should know about optimal video length when you produce video content and how you can get it right every time.

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Optimal video length for corporate video

When creating online video, always keep in mind the type of videos you like to watch best yourself. Typically corporate videos that are shorter do better overall than a long video. Your ideal video length should be a part of the projects plan before production. Here are the categories to consider when considering ideal length.

Shorter than 2 minutes: Since your viewer's attention spans are short, you want to pack as much content into a short period of time as possible. We often produce videos of 15 seconds or less for clients running ads in video marketing effots. Whether a video is 30 seconds or 2 minutes, a video sees around the same amount of engagement. However, once you're over the 2 minute mark, you begin to see a drop off in that videos engagement. Remember that when you're planning your production.

2 to 3 minutes: This is a dead zone that you'll want to avoid. If you find that your video will be in the 2 to 3 minutes range, you should look to cut out that extra 30-45 seconds. This will put you in the above category and keep it short and sweet. Your target audience will appreciate this edit for time.

3 to 6 minutes: Viewer engagement drops rapidly during this duration. Do everything you can to keep videos shorter. A 3 minute videos engagement is around 65%, by adding a few more minutes of content you are ensuring that half the audience will turn it off (50%). Plan carefully.

6 to 12 minutes: If your video needs to be longer than 2 minutes, and there will be content that just requires a longer video, you can sit in this range without worrying too much. The 6 to 12 minute range averages the same amount of video engagement, so there won't be a significant drop-off if you need to have a 6 minute video versus a 9 minute video.

12 minutes or longer: You will lose some of your audience if the 12 minutes or longer is what you're planning. Does your video content really require this? Instead of one twelve minute video, maybe it makes sense produce six two minute videos. In addition to better engagement you'll likely end up with content that is more flexible for your uses. These shorter videos can garner more views when posted to social media for the reasons listed above.

Correlation with video engagement

Optimal video lengths correlate directly with video engagement, aka, "how long does your viewer watch?" In general, you'll need to remember that your target audience has short attention spans and will click off of videos that don't capture their interest quickly.

Even if a video is interesting, sometimes people just don't care to watch a 10 minute video. Knowing this is crucial to ensuring that you obtain the video engagement that you desire for your corporate videos. If you have a topic that requires 30 minutes of video, look to break it up over a series of videos. Remember, six 5 minute videos are better than one 30 minute video in terms of engagement.

Corporate video length exceptions

As with everything, optimal length has exceptions. While videos should be kept on the short side in most instances, there are a couple when you should also consider a lengthier one. Here are two examples:

Tutorials and training videos : If you're seeking to instruct or create a safe environment, you'll want to make sure that you're detailed in the video. This will make the optimal video length longer on average.

Products demonstrations : If you're sharing something new with employees and want to ensure clarity, your optimal video length can be strethed. But if possible, focus only on a couple of features per video, to ensure your video length is as short as possible.

Conclusions

Respecting viewers attention span is a good strategy when producing corporate video. Remember viewers are busy and as a result have a short attention span. Following these tips on optimal video length will allow you to obtain the maximum amount of video engagement and audience retention. Take a look at our portfolio gallery and note that the corporate videos we produce follow the "rules" laid out above.

When in doubt, keep your video post short and sweet. Only opt for longer videos when producing tutorials, training videos, and product demonstrations. Produce instead, short video that keeps your audience's attention.

Acclaim Media Productions is a video production, corporate video, marketing communication & web video company based in the Chicago area but providing services internationally. We help large corporations, successful small businesses & forward-thinking nonprofits build stronger organizations through video production.