Product Creation - How Long Should My Videos Be Please?

This answer is the same, whether for text or video. How long should a string be?

It should only be as long as it needs to be, and not any longer.

Minimum length should follow the same.

Some products have 5 minutes videos, while others have two hour videos.

If they get over about 30 minutes I lose interest and have a hard time concentrating. I much prefer text over video but the courses that use video that I like best are videos in the 5 to 10 minute range.

As Bill said - as long as it needs to be, to do the job.

nothing bugs me more than products that have been overly "fluffed" to make them longer (ebooks, etc).

Byron

I've always found that instructional videos are best when the author takes the time to look at them himself. If a course is text things are explained in paragraphs and chapters. Several sentences make up a paragraph and the paragraph expresses a main point a chapter would be the task or step you want them to master before proceeding to the next step. Usually in Videos there is one main task that you want to describe and demonstrate in each video. Each of these steps or tasks will dictate how long the video for that task or step should be.

I would focus on trying to get all the information related to the each task done in the shortest amount of time. For me 5 or 10 minutes is about right but sometimes you might decide to go over a couple of minutes. Remember there are notes and things that your students are going to want to do while the video is playing. The good thing about video is that you can stop it an go back to check it again.

But break the videos down into tasks organized in the order you want your student to receive them. That way when they actually start doing what you are teaching for real, they can handily go back to a particular video and follow along with it or see what they missed themselves.

I know, these days they are converting text courses into video but I think the same thing should apply there too. Even If you don't have much to demonstrate, it helps to have it broken down into segments. The good thing about video is the pause button for emergencies and dozing off alike.

Second question- a short video is ok but here again make sure you are giving them a complete task even if it don't take long. Watch it yourself if you think its too short you can add a second task to make it more substantial.

Sounds like a fun project when will we see something? Wish you well on it.

I like to keep my videos under 10 minutes. I find anything over that you lose them. Think about courses you have went through and what felt the best for you as far as learning.

This obviously is just my personal preference and it really depends on the presenter as well. If the information is good and the presenter is entertaining them you could go longer.

Andy Jenkins in his video boss course recommends not going more than 10 minutes per video. Break a long video into 10-minute chunks if you have to. There's 2 good reasons for this. Firstly, 10-minute videos are much more consumable. You can watch, digest and take action on it quickly. Secondly, it becomes much much easier to go back and review the topic you are interested in if the videos are short and well-titled, rather than searching through a 2-hour video to find the bit that you need.

I use Jing which limits video length to 5 minutes. At first that seemed to be too short, but I quickly grew to love how it made me stay focused on one specific topic per video. If I have to, I do a Part 1, Part 2 and so on, but even those parts remain focused.

As a buyer, I'm more concerned about the FEELING of conciseness. If the product creator is just rambling to fill time or because they did absolutely NO planning ahead of time, then I tend to get aggravated.

Now, one final thought...

Generally speaking, the longer the video goes, the more chances there are for me to get aggravated.

All the best,
Michael

I agree with Bill, it's the age old question of how long is a piece of string. I think some of the key points here are not to ramble, stick to a script and make sure you are mic-d correctly. Also, I love when product owners also provide a PDF of the course. I am not a visual person at all, I like to read instead.

As long as it is neccesary and not more.
Also it is probably better do not be longer the 30 minutes unless is a webinar or something...
Another thing , you should be thinking about quality of information not the video lenght...
Hope this helps and goodluck with your product man.

Make it long as it need to be but not to be boring. Once you done, you coplete the video, watch it by your self several times and put your self in a other viewer position. When I make a video presentation it not exceed 5 minutes because I think is enough to say everything it needs about what you are presenting. Later, if you do some other videos about how to set up something or similar thing can be longer but for first expression no more thaan 5 minutes.
This is my opinion.

They should be just like a woman's dress...

Long enough to cover the best parts.

Short enough to maintain attention.

A lot depends on why type of video you're creating.

If it's a live-action instructional video (“How to Give Your Car a Perfect Respray”, say) it can be an hour long, and it will pass like minutes.


If it's a screen capture video where you're demonstrating how to do something on-screen (how to use a particular type of software, for example) I find 15 minutes to be the optimum length. You can stretch it to 20 if need be, but anything longer and the viewers' attention starts to wander. Of course, that doesn't mean you can't make a video shorter than that. If it only takes a couple of minutes to demonstrate how to do something, then that's how long the video should be.


Bear in mind that if you are doing something, and the viewer is going to repeat what you're doing right away, you don't want the video to be so long that when they reach the end they've forgotten what you said at the beginning.

Yes it should be as long as you need it to be. When I make video products I either make them completely step by step and they work out longer or I just cover the main points in the written guides and the ones i want to get across and these work out shorter.

As long as you are clear and the info is quality - make them as long as you need to.

Chris