I watched an “About Us” video yesterday on YouTube that was produced for a non-profit. It was more than 7-minutes long! The crazy thing? That was the short version.

The organization has a “full-length” version that’s more than 16-minutes. Yikes!

Now, I don’t know their motivation behind these videos. Sometimes videos are produced for a live/captive audience and then posted on the web as an after-thought. But folks… even for that… 16-minutes is REALLY long.

The length of your video is mostly dependent on where you’re showing it. If its main purpose is for a live audience, I say keep it to 5-minutes or less. If it’s destined for your website, 2-minutes or less. Social Media? Try to keep it to around 60-seconds.

Now, there’s no rules here. We’ll occasionally find exceptions. Just remember, people are busy and many have short attention spans. Keep your videos short and sweet.

–Tony Gnau

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