SOCIAL VIDEO: What are the optimum and best lengths for social and live video in 2018?

Back in the olden days video online was so simple… chucked it up onto YouTube and share the link.

Those days have long  gone. The web is a different place and people use different channels in different ways.

On Twitter and Facebook where you scroll through your timeline your attention span is shorter. On YouTube, where you can go looking for content on specific subjects it can be longer.

This is a list of the maximum length for content and also the optimum time based on research:

Other questions to ask

Of course, the length of your dependent on a few factors. ‘Is your audience using this channel?’ is a key question.

‘Is the video useful?’ is also a key question. Does it have sub-titles? Music? There’s a few other questions to ask but the optimum video length is a good starting point.

The last time I blogged the optimum a few months back people asked for the source of the research. So this time, here are some links to help you. Not all the channels have an optimum length. Periscope, for example.

Notes and queries on the research

YOUTUBE: The maximum length of 15 minutes can be increased to 12 hours through a straight forward verification step.  Optimum length is much shorter.

FACEBOOK: Facebook maximum length against Facebook’s own suggested lengths for ads. INSTAGRAM: Maximum length was increased from 15 seconds to 60 seconds with research via Newswhip suggesting a much shorter length. TWITTER: Maximum length of 240 seconds   is comfortably within Hubspot’s suggested 45 seconds.

SNAPCHAT: Maximum length is a mere 10 seconds but Hootsuite suggest five seconds is the sweet spot.

PERISCOPE: A maximum length and the sky is the limit but there is no research on what the optimum length of a live broadcast is.  FACEBOOK LIVE: Can run for 240 minutes but 19 minutes is best say Buzzsumo.

LINKEDIN is the new kid on the block with native uploaded video. Five minutes is the most you can upload and there is no clear research on what is optimum. As a platform, I’d guess it falls between the 45 seconds of Twitter as video falls into the timeline. But often people post ‘how to’ videos that run beyond the YouTube max of three minutes.

Other platforms

There’s a number of other ways to present video I’ve not touched upon. VIMEO has fallen behind in recent years but still has fans and you can upload via VIMEO LIVE with a premium account. You can go live via YOUTUBE LIVE but there is little accessible guidance for the amateur. FLICKR can take video of up to 1GB but will only play back the first three minutes.

360 & VR Facebook and YouTube in particular are chasing this new way of shooting video but there is little out there on maximum and optimum upload times.

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