What Is The Ideal Video Length?

There are many more places to upload videos besides YouTube these days, so that means that social media in general holds more power than ever for fan engagement. The real question is, what is the ideal video length to get the most fan engagement? Not surprisingly, it’s different for each platform. Hubspot did a study to determine the best length, and this is what they found.

Instagram – 30 seconds. The study found that actually 26 second videos got the most engagement, but you can round it up to 30 with suffering too much.

Twitter – 45 seconds. The average #VideoOfTheDay came in at 43 seconds, which gives us a hint to the best length on the platform.

Facebook – 1 minute. Facebook is a short attention span platform in that people look at something, engage quickly, then move on. Videos longer than a minute can mean that your fans won’t ever get the end of it. Interestingly, 95% of people watch Facebook videos with the audio muted, so make your videos especially visually interesting and independent from the soundtrack when possible.

YouTube – 2 minutes. People go to YouTube to specifically watch videos so they’re willing to spend a little more time than on other platforms. 2 minutes gets the most engagement, but longer videos certainly still work if the content is compelling.

If you’re still not convinced about the ideal video length, the fact is that 56% of all videos published in the last year were 2 minutes long or less! People on social media like short, so if you want them to engage with you, give them what they want.