Technology, the internet and digital apps are designed to feed our need for instant gratification. They use neuroscience against us to keep us on their platforms wanting more.
The easier it is to fill our need right this second, the less patient we are if the need isn’t immediately filled next time.
Want new clothes? Afterpay.
Hungry? Uber Eats.
Access to any information we can imagine in 0.12s? Google.
We want our delivery to arrive sooner? Express shipping is available for practically anything we want to purchase. Think about FedEx’s tagline; When It Absolutely, Positively Has To Be There Overnight.
And we can have all these things from the comfort of our couch while we sip wine in our underwear.
We’ve been programmed very well indeed.
You’ve probably seen many an article around the human attention span becoming even shorter than that of a goldfish. And that attention spans are continuing to decrease as we progress in the digital age.
Of course ‘attention spans’ are relative to the task at hand. We can easily become lost in an activity that we find enjoyable for hours at a time, or become emersed in the flow of a task that holds great value to us.
When scrolling through social media though, we all know our own attention spans can be dramatically short.
Researchers have suggested that the average human attention span has declined from 12 seconds in the year 2000, to 8 seconds in the year 2013, to only 6 seconds in 2019. (Read more.)
In Facebook’s Creator Studio you can see how many people have viewed your videos for 3 seconds, 10 seconds and 1 minute.
You may have noticed that the amount of views dwindles substantially from 3-seconds to 10-seconds. The fact that these statistics are even available to us is evidence enough that we don’t have much time to grab someone’s attention!
So what does this mean for the length of our videos?
There is no magic number that you should aim for. You should however guide the length of your videos with this philosophy in mind;
Take as long as you need to get your message across, and not a moment more.
Keep to the point and keep your video as short as you can; providing you get your message across.
But how do we get people to watch our videos in the first place with such short attention spans?
It all comes down to content, and more specifically, the first 6 seconds of content!
If we can engage the viewer in the first six seconds the odds of them sticking around increase dramatically.
Forget fancy titles or opening sequences, cut to the chase, grab them with a question or a compelling statement and enter the conversation in their mind.
Open your video with something that will make them want to find out more.
“Are you struggling with..?”
“Does this affect your..?”
“Do you find it difficult to..?”
Say something shocking. Interrupt the pattern of mindless scrolling by throwing your audience a curveball.
Not every single video you create needs to be like this. And if it is, eventually the effect will wear off because the format will become predictable.
But every video should cut right to the chase so you can engage your viewer in under 6 seconds.
And you don’t need to abandon your fancy titles for good! By all means, have a beautiful opener… but utilise it after your initial attention-grabbing statement.
Once you start to establish a loyal audience – a true fan base – these viewers are more likely to watch your videos regardless of what they’re about if they’ve enjoyed your content in the past.
Your true fans will watch whatever you upload because they now like you as much (and sometimes more than) they like your content.
But you need to find your true fans first!
So, how can you engage your audience in under 6 seconds?
If you would like some help please reach out using the form below.
If you’d like to read more about how to simplify your messaging in video check out this blog post.
[contact-form to=”rachel@thatcameragirl.com” subject=”Under 6 seconds”][contact-field label=”Name” type=”name” required=”1″][contact-field label=”Email” type=”email” required=”1″][contact-field label=”My video question is…” type=”textarea”][/contact-form]
Until then, happy creating!