It wasn’t too long ago that video content creators were told their videos must be at least 10-30 minutes to have any value at all. For a time this was true.
Right now everything has turned upside down. Platforms like TikTok have not just shown the value in short specific videos, but others like YouTube and Instagram have taken note and followed their lead.
These technologies are making peoples attentions spans even shorter and it’s opening a new world of opportunities.
In these days did you ever notice how we might fast forward youtube videos more often or run the video at a faster speed?
Did you notice that when we share videos people like to know at what minute mark to forward too (if you don’t already do this, try to link to YouTube videos with the timecode to jump to when necessary).
Did you notice that when people make posts online even if its only two or three paragraphs people respond asking for cliff notes / TL;DR (too long; didn’t read)? How many of you reading this very blog are jumping in your seats and saying “get to the point already!”
Right now if you want to sell information say in a book format you are in most cases told there is a minimum number of pages you must write. That is going to change so fast, few will see it coming.
People trying to gain knowledge by reading a book on a topic really just want the knowledge. This is why so often a book with 250 pages might only teach you one thing, but the poor author needed to spend a lot of time and money stuffing it with waste in order to sell it.
The new world we are about to enter will not be about quantity of pages or number of minutes, but about quality. If you could share knowledge in one sentence or in 30 seconds that is helpful, you deserve to get paid and WILL GET PAID.
Gradually those that stuffed books with waste will be as relevant as a 5 minute funny cat video that really only has a 20 second part that is funny. The market does a fine job washing out the junk. People vote with their wallets and in video content this change is happening so fast, major players are barley keeping up.
Do not make the mistake of thinking that everything will go into a short very pointed format. This is the billion dollar mistake Quibi made. People are not about to pay for a one page romance novel or a 5 minute horror film. However, if someone needs certain information they will pay for that information if it’s delivered right away and in the shortest form possible.