Marketers often are ready with the right type of explainer video, but what really sends them into a frenzy is the question of video length.
The debate between short-form and long-form explainer videos can be quite confusing!
In reality, they differ not only in duration but also in their offerings, purpose, suitable platforms, and production costs.
To clear things up, we've put together this blog to explore the major differences between short-form and long-form video content to show you which is the right format for your explainer videos.
Here we’ll break down their major distinctions and provide examples to illustrate each type.
The core difference between these two types of explainer videos is often lost under bulky paras, so to help you understand them clearly, we’ve created this concise table–
|
Feature |
Short Form Videos |
Long Form Videos |
|
Duration |
These animated videos are quick, snappy, and usually wrap up under 60 seconds. |
These animated videos provide in-depth information and are up to 2 minutes or longer. |
|
Purpose |
They are used to grab attention fast. |
They are used for detailed storytelling and explanations. |
|
Platforms |
They are ideal for social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn. |
They are best for YouTube, podcasts, webinars, and in-depth platforms. |
|
Audience Engagement Style |
They bring quick engagement as they get straight to the point. |
They provide a deeper level of engagement and hold the viewer’s attention longer. |
|
Production Cost |
They are quite budget-friendly and faster to create. |
They can be more costly due to length and complexity. |
|
Audience Attention |
They are perfect to captivate today’s audience who have short attention spans. |
They are perfect to keep dedicated viewers around for a long time. |
|
Best for |
Social media marketing campaigns, quick product demo videos, teasers & trailers, event highlights, and influencer partnerships. |
Customer testimonials videos, webinars, explainers, educational videos, documentaries, case studies, detailed product reviews, and brand storytelling. |
|
SEO Impact |
They are good for quick hits but not heavy on Search Engine Optimization. |
They boost SEO as they are longer and people spend more time watching them, which ultimately means better SEO ranking. |
|
Emotional Connection |
They build light and fast connections. |
They develop deeper emotional bonds with viewers. |
|
Combination Potential |
They can be used as a teaser or intro for longer content. |
They can be used to expand on what you introduced in your short videos. |
Now that you’ve got a good grasp of how these two types of video formats differ, let’s reinforce those differences with some examples!
These are some amazing short-form explainer video examples you should know about-
This high-quality 3D animation video from Microsoft introduces the Copilot+PC as the fastest and smartest Windows PC ever!
It explains its key features like NPU, Recall, Co-Creator, Live Captions, and Copilot.
The short-form video even gives us a sneak peek of what you can do with it—like AI-generated sketches, brainstorming sessions, analyzing data, and summarizing information.
It’s a quick watch, packed with engaging music, fluid transitions, fun kinetic typography animations, and vibrant colors.
All in all, it’s perfectly tailored short-form video content for social media platforms like Instagram, where it was published!
This B2B video shows you how to turn your notes into study guides using Google Gemini.
It kicks off in a cool 2D animated environment with a student working on their laptop, and then it shifts to showcasing the features of Gemini with eye-catching 3D animation. The visuals really grab your attention!
The background music is simple yet engaging, which is perfect for platforms like Instagram, where videos often rely on music rather than voiceovers.
This is a short 15-second screencast animation video that Slack posted on their Twitter account. It shows how to move complex deals forward effortlessly in Salesforce channels.
It just showcases the product in action without diving into too much detail. It piques interest and includes a link for viewers to learn more.
Interestingly, the video doesn’t use fancy transitions or background music—there’s no sound at all!
Since it’s on Twitter, where the audience doesn’t crave a music score as much as Instagram users do, this was a smart choice.
This is an 8-second 2D animation video with a catchy caption on LinkedIn.
It gives a quick overview of how Grammarly can rewrite entire paragraphs to help you stay focused and reduce back-and-forth communication.
It shows how a red sidebar pops up on the left side of your writing whenever Grammarly spots a chance to enhance your paragraph.
What’s great is that this short-form video doesn’t rely on voiceovers; it visually demonstrates everything instead.
This shows that you can pack a lot of valuable information into a short video!
This 3D animated video introduces Salesforce's Einstein Copilot with upbeat background music and smooth transitions, making the product feel like a breeze to use.
In just 44 seconds, this YouTube video visually demonstrates how you easily ask Einstein Copilot to create discounts for product lines, create a product plan, or launch an email campaign. It can aid you in all your important tasks.
Look at these long-form video examples to understand how they differ from short-form videos:
This classic explainer video gives a full overview of the Recurly platform, highlighting how it's the go-to subscription management and recurring billing platform for leading global brands.
In nearly 2 minutes, this video uses apt visuals to highlight Recurly’s flexible pricing models, automated invoicing, and revenue recovery tools.
The long-form explainer video keeps it simple with a clear voiceover walking you through the platform, without relying on fancy animations or music.
It does include brief infographic animations to illustrate key data points, keeping things straightforward and informative.
This video blends 2D animation with screencast visuals to explain how Customer.io is a customer engagement platform designed for marketing teams to create data-driven campaigns.
It introduces the product’s key offerings—Journeys and Data Pipelines and then uses a campaign example to demonstrate how to effectively use these tools.
Instead of just giving a brief overview, the video dives deep into the details, showing each step of the process with screencast animations and a voiceover guiding you along.
At 6 minutes long, it's thorough and designed to give you a complete understanding of their product.
This mixed-media video introduces and explains the IBM Sustainability Accelerator program. It explains how climate-related disasters can push millions into poverty.
From there, it transitions into explaining how IBM is working to support these communities through the Accelerator program.
The video perfectly blends real-life images of affected communities with smooth animations that break down how the program operates.
A calming voiceover ties everything together, walking you through the details and keeping the message clear and engaging throughout.
This content marketing video uses a combination of 2D and 3D animations to showcase 3Flow’s latest fume hood airflow system.
It begins by explaining how laboratories consume a lot of energy, with airflow accounting for up to 85% of a building’s energy use.
It also highlights how fume hoods, which are essential in labs, are a major contributor to this energy consumption.
After outlining these problems, the video introduces the 3Flow Fume Hood as a solution.
Through a mix of voiceover, visuals, and infographics, this long-form video explains the features of the fume hood.
It showcases all the components, including a character demonstrating how to use it.
The video does a great job of addressing any questions a potential customer might have, making it both informative and engaging.
This classic 2D animation video starts by explaining a problem. It highlights how the future of your VMware setup promises more flexibility and fewer hardware headaches in the cloud.
But there's a catch—-most cloud providers don’t let you choose your own VMware version or schedule software upgrades, and they might even limit your administrative control.
This means you’ll need to keep changing your tools, skills, and processes. At that point, does moving to the cloud even make sense?
This is where Oracle Cloud VMware Solution comes in. The product video showcases how it offers a high-performance, scalable cloud solution that replaces part or all of your on-premises setup—while still giving you the same full administrative access.
Consider these five things and they’ll help you understand when to go with long video content and when to cut it short–
At the end of the day, your audience is the center of your content and they’ll decide what video length works best. Even if general norms say that your YouTube channel videos should be longer or social media videos should be shorter, your audience preferences may differ and can even surprise you.
For instance, if your YouTube audience prefers shorter videos or your social media fans engage more with longer ones, go with that. Take a look at the performance of your previous videos to decide.
See which type of video is getting the most views, likes, or comments on a certain video platform. Follow the trends you see, and don’t worry about sticking to the “rules”—your audience is what matters most.
Do you want to educate people, increase brand awareness, promote a product, or increase conversion rates?
What exactly do you want to accomplish with your video?
Knowing the purpose helps you decide how long it needs to be. For example, tutorials might need more time, while a quick product promotional video can stay short and sweet. Once you know the goal, you can work on your content strategy and figure out the ideal length.
Different types of videos have different ideal lengths. A how-to explainer video will take more time than a customer review, for instance. On the other hand, something like product highlights or quick testimonials should be short.
However, there’s flexibility here too!
Even for tutorials or explainers, some topics can be covered in just a few minutes, while others may need longer. Just focus on what makes sense for the type of content you want to make.
It's pretty basic that video length and production cost are directly proportional—the longer the video the higher the production cost.
If you want a 5-minute professional video, it’ll require a bigger investment. But if your budget is tight and you want a 30-second promo video for your social media platforms, the video production cost will be comparatively less.
To get a proper breakdown on video production pricing, check out next: "Explainer Video Cost Breakdown: Understand What You're Paying For"
Your platform choice matters a lot!
Some platforms like Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts have strict time limits (90 seconds for Reels, 3 minutes for YouTube Shorts). Others, like LinkedIn or YouTube, allow for longer videos.
So, before you start creating, think about where your video will go and what limits or norms that platform has. Also, if you are planning to run video ads, you’ll need to stick to the platform’s guidelines for length.
Therefore, it's always a good idea to research your digital marketing channels and their algorithms in advance. This way, you can avoid posting a video that doesn't quite fit the platform you have in mind.
Yes, you can, and I’ve hinted at this in the difference table as well. Combining short and long-form video content can really boost your video marketing strategy.
Short videos are great for grabbing attention quickly and can act as teasers, pulling in a wider audience. Then, once they’re interested, you can lead them to your longer videos for more detailed tutorials or storytelling.
This way, you’ll be able to keep different types of viewers engaged, build stronger connections with them, and, as a result, drive more engagement and conversions.
Yes, you can easily repurpose your long-form content into short-form videos. You just need to pull out the key highlights, important points, or the most engaging moments from the long-form content and then use them to create short, impactful clips.
Now that you’ve got a handle on the key differences between short-form and long-form videos, let’s do a quick recap– Short videos typically run under 60 seconds, grabbing quick attention, while long-form videos stretch past the 2-minute mark, diving deeper into the content.
Short ones are great for social media, while longer ones shine on platforms like YouTube or during webinars.
The choice between short and long videos really comes down to your goals, audience, video type, budget, and where you plan to publish.
Keep these factors in mind, and you'll know whether to go short or long!