Long-form video content can have a significant impact on your audience.

At Toast, our clients often ask us how long their content (written, audio, video) should be. Our answer always remains the same: “As long as possible, as long as it stays interesting.”

Their answer to this often comes down to telling us that their audience doesn’t really watch their 60-second content, people don’t watch it to the end, so we should make sure to tighten it all up into shorter content.

“People no longer have the attention span they used to have, so we have to make it shorter.”

That is simply not true.

The brain has not really changed in the last 10 years. What has changed, however, is the offer, the amount of content available to us, which has exploded.

We human beings have an EXCELLENT attention span. We are able to binge view two seasons of Game of Thrones, House of Cards in a single weekend.

Struggling to get content out the door? A good content strategy required good prodution partners. Discover our capabilities in video, audio and editorial-SEO content production.

When it’s good, we stay.

It is when the level of interest or value you get from content is not there that you tune out.

“With the amount of content at my disposal, there must be something better than that… I’ll stop this and go see elsewhere.”

And your content assets, are they interesting enough? Do they provide enough value?

Of course, your brand will not be the next Black Mirror or Chernobyl, but here lies the real main variable that determines the attention span of your audience: the value that your content brings.

An article, published by the team at Wistia, lists 7 excellent examples of brands that have played the bet (and succeeded) in producing long-form content. Patagonia, ProfitWell, Mailchimp, Airbnb, brands that have found the content angle that attracts and brings value to their target customers and have therefore produced long-form video content on the subject.

Struggling to get performance out of your content? If your content team is living through content chaos on a daily basis, schedule a quick call with us to discuss Content strategy and content operations. We can help you get all your ducks in a row.

And let’s clarify one thing: long-form content does not necessarily equal high production costs. The example of ProfitWell perfectly demonstrates that it is possible to produce longer video content at a low cost.

I invite you to think about the level of attention you are currently seeing in your audience and ask yourself if the value you bring to the table is high enough to stimulate continuous, longer-lasting watching time. And if not, what content could you produce that would do so?

Would you like to analyze which content angles could bring more value to your audience? What is your level of satisfaction of it? Let us know and schedule a consultation with our experts at Toast today.