Creating Videos for Social Media

Have you ever been scrolling through social media, and you see a video that is five minutes long, and you think to yourself, “Who is going to watch that?” If so, you are not alone. For most social media, content should remain under two minutes; however, the content should be even smaller for other socials.

The graphic above outlines what length of videos works best for which social platform. But to reiterate it, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and TikTok followers will watch videos ranging from 15 seconds to 1 minute. Viewers of your newsletter and your website will watch 30 seconds to 1-minute video. Instagram followers watch the shortest length of videos, between 15- 30 seconds.

Why is this important? When you post on social media, you are posting to engage and inform your audience. If the content is not engaging, then there is no way you can inform your audience, even if you have compelling copy, because chances are if someone is not going to watch your video, they are not going to read your caption either. Similarly, if you create an engaging video, make sure the messages you want to convey are listed in the video because, again, chances are someone is not going to watch a video and read a long caption.
When you create video content, you should always keep in mind how you can repurpose something. Most people do not have time to make an individual video for each platform; however, if you create with your media in mind, you can create something that can be edited down into smaller pieces for individual socials.

Written by Jewellynn Wood