Others may be debating what the
Stop Kony video says about the power of social media and whether the video is misleading and why it went so viral, but something we noticed is how
long this video is. The Invisible Children documentary which was shared at least 74 million times as of yesterday lasts a half an hour. To give a sense of how long that is, here are other videos that have been popular and talked about:
- Rebecca Black’s “Friday” video (YouTube’s most popular video of 2011): 3:48
- Moveon.org’s “Zach Wahls Speaks About Family”: 3:01
- “Christian The Lion – i will always love you….” (which transfixed the internet back in 2008) is 2:28
It’s fairly shocking that people will share a video that’s almost 30 minutes long. But ComScore, which measures what they call “the digital world,” reported back in January that longer video is on the rise; the average online video is now 6.1 minutes long – up from 5 minutes a year ago. They also reported that online viewership is on the rise, and of course in some sense the fact that people will watch a well-produced 30 minute video isn’t news–because after all, what’s a sit-com but a 30 minute video? (The report is
here.) But what’s new is that a 30-minute video can go viral without advertising dollars, that people will share it, and share feelings about it.
Short-form video clearly isn’t going away. And as the video we posted last week that we produced for the National Network to End Domestic Violence illustrates, a video can be moving and influential in 60 seconds. But as internet viewing increasingly replaces cable television, the internet attention span seems to be growing. And for our clients we consider this good news–no rules means the freedom and obligation to make your video just the right length to hold attention and make your point.
If MiniMatters can help you use this tip or serve your other video needs, we’d love to talk with you at 301-339-0339 or via email at [email protected]. 