Maisie Lloyd
I'm passionate about recording the world, but most of all driven by creativity and collaborative environments. My experience revolves around the production of digital content, pertaining to graphic design, writing copy, and video and audio content.
What is Long-form content?
Long-form content is typically over a word count of 1000 words, or in video format, the content is over a minute in length.
Long-form content takes longer for a reader or watcher to consume, which often requires a level of engagement that demands the audience’s focus. Certain platforms and types of content on websites will warrant long-form content. For instance, some examples of long-form content include:
- E-books
- Research papers
- Blogs and articles
- Videos and podcasts
When to use long-form content?
Long-form content is best used when there’s more information and details to be shared. Because of this, it tends to accrue higher levels of traffic in a longer period than short-form content.
Establishing the purpose of your content will ensure you can set measurable goals. This type of content is particularly helpful when a business wants to build its authority whilst educating or entertaining its audience.
Long-form content offers practical benefits to site owners, with the potential to have content rank for keywords. Another practicality is the re-usability of the content, this type of content is usually far easier to rejuvenate and repurpose for other platforms. Long-form content that demonstrates originality and high-quality content that provides value to the reader is more likely to draw in readers.
Factors to consider
- Long-form content is ideal for when there are plenty of resources and budget (whether that’s time or money). If resources are limited, long-form content may not be the most practical style to produce.
2. Another factor to consider is the audience who will be digesting the content, if they have shorter attention spans, the content may not be suited to their watching preferences.
3. This type of content doesn’t garner high volumes of engagement.
4. Long-form content is suitable for websites, YouTube content, and even TikTok, with creators being able to post anywhere between 15 seconds to 10 minutes.
What is short-form content?
Short-form content is anywhere under a minute long or is roughly under 1000 words long. This type of content requires less attention and, therefore, tends to cater for those with little to no attention span with their content consumption. This type of content is typically seen in:
- Email campaigns
- Blogs and news articles
- Infographics
- Social media posts
When to use short-form content?
Short-form content is best used when there’s a minimal amount of information needing to be conveyed. This style of content is often more casual as a result, it requires less structure and is easier to create multiple because it typically requires less time and resources budgeted for it.
Short-form content is best suited to more casual forms of content consumption, like videos on TikTok or a thread on Reddit. This often means the content is shared and engaged with in a more informal and real-time way.
Factors to consider
- Short-form content needs forethought and planning, without it, content can become repetitive, lose its relevance or lack the substance needed to establish authority.
2. This style of content doesn’t have the same longevity that longer pieces of content have; this is down to the lack of information, and the type of content usually subject matter covered is commonly time-sensitive.
3. Because there are fewer words or seconds to work with, the subject matter is at risk of being oversimplified, limiting the depth of information being shared.
4. Short-form content is best suited to be on social platforms like YouTube shorts, Metas social platforms, LinkedIn, or Reddit.
Each type of content has its own unique benefits to offer, as well as applications. The key to success lies in understanding the purpose of the content, the audience and the resources available to be used. Aligning your content format with your business goals and the needs of the audience will allow you to make meaningful decisions around content production.
Measuring and analysing content performance is a key way to assess how suitable and successful the type of format chosen is for your business’s content strategy. If you’d like to explore how to optimise your content strategy further, reach out to us!
