Long-form vs Short-form Content: Do you need both in your marketing?
If you’ve heard the phrase ‘long-form’ or ‘short-form’ content before, but you’re not sure what types of content they include or how they’re different, this post is for you!
Because it’s not really just a case of some content being ‘short’ and some being ‘long’. Those are subjective terms, and it can also get confusing depending which platform you’re talking about, or which formats (eg. written vs video content).
So I’m breaking it all down in today’s post!
Table of Contents
Watch this as a video on youtube or keep scrolling to read:
The Difference Between Long-form & Short-form Content (what is it + examples)
While there’s no ‘official’ definition of what makes something a long-form vs a short-form piece of content, the below are what most marketers tend to agree on!
Short-form content examples
Instagram grid/carousel posts with captions
Reels / TikTok videos
YouTube Shorts or quick videos (typically under 10 mins)
Email newsletters
Pins/Idea Pins on Pinterest
Short blog posts/articles (typically under ~1000 words)
LinkedIn posts
Tweets
Long-form content examples
Blog posts (typically over ~1000 words)
YouTube videos (typically over 10 mins)
Podcast episodes
LinkedIn articles (typically over ~1000 words)
It does surprise some people that blog posts under 1000 words would still be considered a short-form piece of content (for example, an 800 word blog post might still feel quite ‘long’!). But it really comes down to the depth of information you can really convey within one piece of content.
It also refers more to the specific benefits you can achieve from content that is technically longer (as listed below), but of course it’s just a rule of thumb! An 800 word blog post might be considered a long-form piece of content if it achieves some of the benefits I’ve listed out below…
Why Use Long-form Content (The Benefits)
The content lasts longer & can be ‘evergreen’
As the name possibly suggests, long-form content can tend to last longer and is more ‘evergreen’. So you'll notice with social media posts, you post them up one day and they might get a bit of traction for a few days, but after that they're kind of gone with the wind.
So much social content is being created all the time - it’s very fast moving, so things get lost very quickly. And even shorter-form content, like Instagram Stories, only lasts for 24 hours on the Instagram Stories platform!
Meanwhile, ‘evergreen’ means that something lasts and potentially gets more traction as time goes on, or at least retains its value for a longer time.
So when you’re creating long-form content, you ideally want to create it around a topic that is going to be relevant in months and years to come, because it takes longer to create, so you want to get the most ‘bang for your buck’ from creating it!
better for search engines (& help your ‘seo’!)
Long-form content is typically also better for search engines and searchability, whether that’s on Google or YouTube.
When you search for something on Google, you’ll notice that in the top 10 results, you’re likely to see articles that have been published within the last few months, mixed in WITH articles that could be a year or even a couple of years old! Something that is created with in-depth research like this, tends to stand the test of time, and as it gets more popular over time, Google sees it as a valuable, authoritative resource, so shows it to even more people who are searching.
Encourage deeper engagement
Long-form content also tends to encourage deeper engagement. On social media you might have someone ‘liking’ a post or leaving a short comment, and while the same can be true for blog posts on YouTube, people are much more likely to do a more impactful next step after they've listened to a podcast episode or watched a YouTube video.
You're not interrupting them while they're having a nice scroll on social media; you're actually providing something of value, and they're going to be much more likely to take next step with you. So it creates a deeper connection with your brand.
Can easily be repurposed into short-form content
Long-form content is great because it also can be easily repurposed into short-form content too. So you could take a blog post and get several Instagram posts from pulling out the text from that one blog post, for example.
Why Use Short-form Content (The Benefits)
Quicker & easier to create and consume
Obviously short-form content is quicker to create, but it’s also quicker to consume as well. So if you want to get across a quick message maybe about something that's quite topical, or something that you've just thought of and you really just want to get it out there quickly, it's going to be a lot easier for you to do that than writing up a whole entire blog post and making a plan for YouTube video, etc
More reactive & flexible (to stay ‘on the pulse’)
If things are happening in the news or in your industry, you can really stay on top of talking about them much easier with short-form content than having to do a lot of research to put together a long-form piece of content.
Create more of a conversation with your audience
Short-form content also allows you to create more of a conversation between you and your audience as well. With long blog posts and long YouTube videos, you put in all of that work, you put it out there and then you might have some discussions in the comments with people, but that's about it.
With short-form content, you’re able to put out a post very quickly, get feedback on that post and then create another post, or something around it that's similar, and create that continued discussion.
Great for quicker reach & engagement
Short-form content is much better for getting quick engagement and quick reach. If you are creating a long blog post or long YouTube video, it might actually take a few days or weeks or even months to get traction and get people viewing it.
Whereas if you post something on social media, it tends to get that initial hit and you can learn from that, and make decisions quicker. But it also just helps you get that initial boost of engagement, if that's what you need.
When to Use Long-form vs. Short-form Content
Consider what your goals are for this content
You really want to consider what your goal is for each piece of content.
Are you using it to get traffic and you just want an initial hit of quick reach? In this case maybe a short-form piece of content might be better because long-form content can tend to take a while to bring in that traffic.
Maybe your goal for that content is to start getting feedback and start a conversation with your audience again. again Then short-form content is really good for that!
But if you're trying to do something like improve your SEO on your website and get known for a specific service or offering and what you do, then longer-form content is probably going to better achieve that for you because it can be really searchable.
Maybe you want to create a piece of content that you can refer people back to again and again. Perhaps you want to be able to send it to clients because they often come up with the same questions, in which case a long-form piece of content is going to be more detailed.
What resources do you have available?
It also really depends on the resources that you have available to you, of course, because we can't all just churn out multiple long-form pieces of content a week, especially if we are solo business owners and we don't have a big, dedicated marketing team. So figure out what's actually achievable to you!
Maybe creating one long-form piece of content a week, or a couple of per month, is more achievable. And then the rest of the time you can create some short-form content.
Creating a Healthy Mix of Content in Your Marketing
I personally think having a mixture of content that achieves both the long-form (and long-term!) and short-form (and short-term!) benefits is important. And while that might sound like a lot more work, when you have a clear and streamlined content creation process set up, it’s really not that hard!
My Process
Each week I’ll create a piece of ‘long-form’ content (such as a blog post, YouTube video, or podcast episode), and then create several short-form pieces related to / based on / repurposed from that one long-form piece! That way everything I’m talking about in my content that week has the same theme, and it’s quick and easy for me to create everything.
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