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When you create content for YouTube, one of the things that come into mind is the length of your videos. Does it really matter? How long should YouTube videos be ideally? In today’s episode, Nate Woodbury will be answering your questions and he’s going to weigh the pros and cons of a long video and a short video.
Welcome back. So, how long can YouTube episodes be? How long should they be? We’re going to talk about some pros and cons of having short episodes versus long episodes. I’m even going to show you the secret of how I got a video up to 5 million views. So, we’re going to answer these questions for you. -Hey, Nate. -Hey, Katie. So, we’ve got Katie Gutierrez in the house. In fact, we’re in your house. Providing some coaching on YouTube. And one of the questions that she asks is how long should my YouTube videos be? And I found that the question that people are searching for online because of course I did keyword research is how long can my YouTube episodes be. I kind of think that’s an interesting question. Because I really have no idea. They could probably be 10 hours long. But I think what the topic we should really discuss is how long should they be. Because we’re really talking about getting results, right? If we post it to short or too long, is it going to get better results? The common knowledge that’s out there is that your videos should be shorter. Shorter is better. Have you heard that? -I have. -Okay. That’s for a promo video. When you’re making a commercial, when you’re pitching yourself, you’re talking about your services or your product or anything like that. And it’s promotional. You’re trying to sell something. You want to keep it short because people know that it’s it’s a sales pitch. That it’s an advertisement. And so you want to keep it as high energy as possible to keep them engaged to give them as much information as you can about it to really get them emotionally engaged. And keep it short so that they don’t leave and decide, “Ah, I don’t like this anymore.” Right? But when we’re when we’re teaching, when we’re giving how-to content, you can make it a lot longer. People are expecting to stay longer. YouTube recommends between 7 and 16 minutes per episode. And I found 10 11-12 minutes is a great length for an episode. I usually shoot for an average of 10. And in conversation style videos like this, you can go way longer. One of my favorite YouTubers EdMylett, he does interviews and they’re typically like 35 45 minutes long. And he gets really good watch time. So, question for you Katie. When I first shared that episode should be an average of like 10 minutes in length, what was your reaction to that? I was surprised at how much longer that was than I thought. I typically was making YouTube videos that were like 3 minutes because I felt like I needed to be quick and short where I would lose a person’s interest in what I’m saying. But when you said that, I thought to myself, “Yeah, that’s… That’s about the average time that I spend watching videos.” And the videos that I do watch on YouTube, I’m really engaged and I want the information. I want the content. So, 10 minutes does feel like a really good sort of sweet spot to be in. -There’s a good variety of different channels. But most the ones that I watch, I find the same thing. There in that 10-011 minute range. Whether it’s a vlog, whether it’s a how-to. Sometimes, a how to 3 minutes does it justice and it can’t go any longer. And you don’t want… You don’t want to end up sort of dragged on for sure. I’m curious what you think. Is 10 minutes an episode, do you feel that that’s long? Go and comment below on that. I want to talk about why longer content is good. Then I want to share a story of the longest video that I’ve made. And why it got 5 million views. -YouTube likes watch time. When you… When you log in to the creator studio which is kind of like the analytics behind the scenes of YouTube. The stats that you see on that dashboard. The first screen that you see, that’s what you want to pay the most attention to. And watch time is right there front and center even more so than views. Because we think, “Oh, this videos got this many views. This video…” But watch time is huge. They put it front and center and that tells me that we ought to pay attention to watch time as well. Look at it a couple ways. You could make 10 episodes that are each 1 minute long. And that would add up to 10 minutes. Or you can make one video that’s 10 minutes long. The likelihood of somebody watching one video for 10 minutes, that that’s pretty likely. I mean, some people might watch halfway through. But the likelihood of somebody watching 10 different episodes of yours that are each 1 minute long and getting the same watch time, it’s just not going to happen. So, longer videos get more watch time, YouTube likes people staying on YouTube’s longer. Also, there’s a certain amount of time that must pass between ads. So, YouTube will put an ad here and then they need to have a certain amount of watch time before they can display another ad. And so, if you’re just making short videos, YouTube might put other videos there instead of suggesting yours because yours are just too short. -Is there a sweet spot for minutes versus ads? So, for example, if they do an ad per every 3 minutes then you don’t want to have a video that’s five and a half minutes long because then you won’t achieve that second ad? -I don’t know the exact answer to that. I do know that once your video is 10 minutes long, you can check the option to allow mid-roll ads which an ad will appear in the middle of your video. I just know that YouTube recommends have your videos be between 7 and 16 minutes long. And so, I usually just shoot for ten. -And when you talked about mid-roll ads, is that something that you would suggest doing? Clicking that option or do you find that they’re annoying to viewers and shouldn’t be included? -I admit. I’m hesitant to try them. I’m hesitant to try them. So, I haven’t used them yet. Maybe I should just experiment. But I haven’t tried them. -We need you to be the guinea pig for us all. -Maybe we’ll to test it out on your channel. -Okay. -On one of my channels with my friend Kris, we made a video how to invest in your 20s. This was 18 months ago that we posted this video. And about 6 months. And we noticed, this is a really high performing video. It was. It was getting a lot of search volume but also a lot of suggestive view volume. So, it had caused some spikes on the channel. -I’ve seen that video actually. -Awesome. Well, we decided to remake the video. I went to Kris and I said, “This video is done so well. We’re going to redo it. Make it a little bit longer.” And the the first video, the original video is about 6 minutes long. And Kris was sitting on his pool table. It’s a bright red felt pool table. Kind of a cool scene that the audience that really liked it or the early 20s. So, we’re going to make a similar video. And I thought, “Okay, if they like the pool table. They liked this topic. How to invest in your 20s…” I said, “Kris, we went we need to put your car in the video.” And he was real hesitant at the time. He’s happy to put Car in his house and fancy stuff in there now. But back then, I really had to persuade him. But I got him to pull up the street. So I was filming him, drive up to his house. The wing door opens up. He gets out of the car. -I think it’s important to note that he has a really cool Lamborghini. -It looks like a Lamborghini. It’s a BMW i8. -Oh, equal. -The wing doors, yeah. So, I had to twist his arm to get him to do that. But the end of the story you’ll see why we did this. So, it was so cool. His maid was actually there that day. So when he walked in the house. He’s like, “Oh, hello cleaning lady.’ And people thought that it was staged but that was real. And we walked into his kitchen. You know, the video ended up being 20 minutes long. We didn’t plan on it being that long. But we just thought… It was 20 minutes. It wasn’t stretched. We didn’t like make it… It was just engaging. -Not much to fill. -Yeah. And because the topic had already done well on the channel. The previous video, this one, it started to get some traction at the first week second week. And I think by the third week, that thing took off. That’s the video that took the channel from 80,000 subscribers to 160,000 within 5 weeks. Just that one video. I say just that one. But we did a second video that kind of helped it as well. We did another one tag team as well. A 20-minute episode that has a long watch time, a view duration, YouTube will promote all over the place because it is getting a lot of watch time. In that video, yeah. That video is 5 million views. -What you’re saying is we all need BMW i8? Go out and buy it. -If you go buy $160,000 car then you’ll be able to make a 20 minute episode that everyone will watch and your your channel will will thrive. -Okay. I got to go. So Nate, how short is too short. I would think that a too short video is one that is not about time necessarily but one about how much information you’re presenting. So, maybe a video is too short when you don’t give your audience and a value in the video. -I like that. I like that. Because if you think what are you trying to do in the video. You’re really trying to give that value. You’re also really trying to build a connection. And this is a slight topic. But some people say, “Well, do I have to be in the videos?” Can I just talk and give the answers and show things?” There’s no relationship that’s built there. So, your video needs to be long enough that you’re thorough and really giving value that you’re giving the answer that it’s complete. And that you’re able to show your personality that you’re able to build that connection. There’s a channel that I love and their episodes are pretty short. Sometimes they’re 2 and a half. Sometimes 3 and a half. But they do sketch comedy. It’s… They do skits. And a 10-minute skit, I mean… Yeah. -So, each channel is going to be unique and how long the video should be. But for how to, my recommendation is definitely just stick to… Just go for an average of 10 minutes each episode. -That’s really helpful thank you. -Hopefully you found that helpful as well. Be sure to subscribe. We’ve got a couple free gifts that I can give you. There is a keyword research guide. There’s an outsourcing guide. You can find the links to those down below. And we’ll see you tomorrow.