You’ve heard it many times before… maybe even thought it many times before: How long should this animation be? How about this video from this medical congress? Is 30 seconds too long? Too short? How about a minute? We can’t fit everything we want to say in a minute!
Well, here’s what I have to say: it doesn’t matter.
Here’s what you’ll learn below:
What does matter when it comes to social content
What the head of Instagram says about content length
Where to put really long content (Hint: not in a LinkedIn article)
An ICYMI channel update for the road
So, what does matter?
Making your content interesting to your audience. I know it might sound obvious. But if your content is good, nothing else matters.
And here’s the best part: I guarantee you the content you’re working on is interesting. What is inspiring about working in health is that everything we do serves a greater purpose.
So, look at that first sentence of your post, that first second of your video. Are you providing a hook? Is that hook interesting to your audience? Or is it stating a message and hoping that people will do what you’re asking them to do?
Avoid the post making an assumption that the reader already cares. This means checking whether it immediately gets into scientific MOA information or tells someone to “Click to learn more” after a few sentences.
Those mechanisms work if you’ve cultivated an audience or community over months, over years – if you already have brand and reputational equity. But not if this is the first DSA post in months.
So, bringing it back to “You have great content!” – If you need to take five minutes to get your message out there… to get your patients, your providers, your partners interested – take five minutes. But make sure the five minutes are built for social. Not social media. Social.
And this is what turns social from a storytelling tactic to a storytelling skillset. While there is an element of social where you just need to have a knack for it, there is enough for anyone to learn and be knowledgeable. Three fundamentals to keep in mind that we’ll continue to dive into in future posts:
Don’t make your post copy and your video compete with each other. For many channels, don’t write up a (beautiful) paragraph of post copy if you are going to have even more words in the video. Choose one or the other. The secret: for many channels (Instagram Reels, TikTok), you don’t even need any copy at all! And for others (X, Threads, BlueSky), you don’t need an accompanying video or image. Being confident in your Creative means not diluting that confidence across multiple assets.
Optimize video for how people watch them. This means subtitled call outs (not everyone will watch with the audio on – I’d wager most won’t be), an actual reward for watching, and…
Deliver a hook in the first second. Think about when you use social media personally. How much time do you spend reading a post or watching a video before scrolling? One second? Less than a second? Don’t expect more than that from an audience that isn’t yet bought in. If your hook is hidden five seconds or three carousel swipes in - work to understand how to shift that up.
Most importantly: Make social fun! And fun here can mean informative or educational. As long as you’re providing content of interest to your audience, “fun” can take on any definition you want it to take on. Just please no quote cards. Those aren’t fun.
What the head of Instagram has to say
From the mouth of Mosseri himself: On Instagram, watching a 10-second video for 10 seconds gives the same amount of algorithmic lift as watching a 10-minute video for 10 seconds. You will not be penalized for a longer video having a lower “percentage of video viewed” rate.
OK, so I have an hour’s worth of content. Where do I put it?
YouTube.
Optimize your video for YouTube, where ultra-longform content can run free. What was once a repository of “set it and forget it” content is now an honest-to-goodness communications and marketing tool for healthcare companies, whether it’s pharma, biotech, or anywhere in between.
“Can this go on YouTube?” should be a question we ask of any produced content - and yes, this includes audio-first or audio-only content!
More on YouTube (and YouTube Shorts) in a later edition.
ICYMI…
To continue on the Meta theme of this edition, Instagram last month rolled out a taller grid on all profiles.
Don’t stress about it too much.
While I wouldn’t recommend you spend any time “fixing” old posts that don’t conform to this grid, it’s a good time to double-check that all in-feed posts on Instagram accommodate the new grid.
The age of 1:1 social is over. And the age of 16:9 social is definitely over.
