There’s this trend in online video that you may have noticed: people are making video that is shorter and shorter and shorter, until there’s basically nothing left. The end product contains only the most basic message, and there’s not much personality that can shine through all that spit and polish.

This is what advertising professionals have been telling people. And it’s not their fault. They’re advertising professionals. That’s what they do. Ads. In their field, they’re absolutely right. Ads should be short. They have to be short. Short ads are effective ways to sell products. But if your purpose is not necessarily to sell, what value is there in stunting your video? A video that is shorter than it should be is less capable of communicating what you actually want to say. So the person that really loses out here is your audience.

Look, I realize I’m probably making some of you quite angry about this, so let me put it another way. Let’s say you have a bakery. Your business is doing well, but you feel you’re having trouble with customer retention. People are coming in because the smells that waft out to the street are amazing, so they just have to try out your cinnamon rolls! But they never seem to come back. So you hire a business consultant, and after her audit, she reports that it’s not because your baked goods aren’t good enough. Far from it! It’s because people feel like your business is part of a club, and walking in, they’re an outsider. It’s a vibe problem. It’s a communication problem.

Your bakery doesn’t need a 30 second video. What you want to tell your customers is going to take longer than that. You want to communicate the warmth and homey feel of your bakery? That’s a communication issue. You aren’t communicating what you actually feel to your customers properly. They need you to tell them that they’re part of the club too!

See video is an extraordinarily powerful communication tool. I would argue it’s the most powerful tool a business or organization has at their disposal. In video, you can say what you actually want to say, what you actually want your customers to understand. But the truth is, sometimes these conversations, these pieces of communication are too complex for such a short video.

So how does one go about sizing up their video? Shoot your video first. Make it pretty. Then edit it down to the minimum length where the information you are delivering is effectively given.

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