Is your content length too short?

Published January 12, 2015 at 8:30 am

When it comes to creating content for your brand, there is one important question you should always ask before moving forward: Will this hold my audience’s attention? When people are surfing the web, the window of time available to catch their attention is often small. Whether it’s in the form of an article, video, Tweet, Facebook post or any other type of content, considering length is a critical step in the development process. Make your article too long, you risk losing reader attention. Too short and you might not be providing all of the information customers want to see.

As pointed out in an article from Business2Community, the length of your content will vary depending on the information being conveyed, as well as your audience. For example, Twitter allows 140 characters in a given post, but it is not necessary to take up all that space. Your posts are in competition with thousands of others, making it a good idea to get your message across as succinctly as possible. Author Anna Rodriguez cites research from Buddy Media that found tweets that were less than 100 characters received 17 percent greater engagement.

However, when it comes to a blog post, the most effective length is debatable. Rodriguez goes on to explain that longer form content has shown to result in more leads. When the goal is to keep the reader on the page, it is essential to consider factors like readability and account for other visual elements that may be present in the content, like photos. As for videos, according to Google, an optimal YouTube video is 3-3.5 minutes long.

No matter the type of content you are producing, it is important to make sure your campaigns are on-brand and on-message. Automated marketing software helps ensure consistent brand voice across multiple channels.