Is there a good length for a video?

[Baldbiker]

I've always felt if it's too long, you will lose viewer retention, if it's too short, not enough content to retain viewers. (unless it's a bikini model shot) Looking at the analytics most videos tend to lose most of their viewers within a few minutes. Some exceptions of course, if it's the viewers favorite vlog to watch they are in for the whole thing no matter what.
So, is there a guideline for video length? What would it be? What are the exceptions?

Personally I've been setting all my vids at 10 minutes. Long enough to put some content, but short enough that they dont get bored and scroll on halfway through the episode... at least... that's the goal.
I also limit my vids to 10 minutes because of my data throughput speed. Being in a rural area and only having 1950s copper phone lines, we can only get 5 mb/s here. So a 10 minute video in 1080p takes me about 30-36 hours to upload. Making a longer episode makes my life hell trying to upload anything bigger.

I've noticed in the past year that the big vloggers have been making their episodes longer and longer. The 10 minute videos are now being stretched out to 30, 40 minutes or even longer. Some are putting up 1.5 to 2 hour episodes. (I envy the data connection they must have just to be able to accomplish that, it would take me a month to upload such and episode.
My analogy is they probably feel they can get more ads viewed in one big episode rather than cutting it up into multiple shorter ones, where viewers tend to drop off significantly when it's a series. So between the multiple episodes you may get more overall views, but less ads watched, and that's where the money is.

So what video lengths are you running? Or is it all over the place because it doesn't matter?

 

[R-Rated]

I've always felt if it's too long, you will lose viewer retention, if it's too short, not enough content to retain viewers. (unless it's a bikini model shot) Looking at the analytics most videos tend to lose most of their viewers within a few minutes. Some exceptions of course, if it's the viewers favorite vlog to watch they are in for the whole thing no matter what.
So, is there a guideline for video length? What would it be? What are the exceptions?

Personally I've been setting all my vids at 10 minutes. Long enough to put some content, but short enough that they dont get bored and scroll on halfway through the episode... at least... that's the goal.
I also limit my vids to 10 minutes because of my data throughput speed. Being in a rural area and only having 1950s copper phone lines, we can only get 5 mb/s here. So a 10 minute video in 1080p takes me about 30-36 hours to upload. Making a longer episode makes my life hell trying to upload anything bigger.

I've noticed in the past year that the big vloggers have been making their episodes longer and longer. The 10 minute videos are now being stretched out to 30, 40 minutes or even longer. Some are putting up 1.5 to 2 hour episodes. (I envy the data connection they must have just to be able to accomplish that, it would take me a month to upload such and episode.
My analogy is they probably feel they can get more ads viewed in one big episode rather than cutting it up into multiple shorter ones, where viewers tend to drop off significantly when it's a series. So between the multiple episodes you may get more overall views, but less ads watched, and that's where the money is.

So what video lengths are you running? Or is it all over the place because it doesn't matter?

It does not matter what some other creator does because their audience is not your audience. What matters is what your analytics show for your audience. See what they respond to and stick around for then tailor the next video to that and revisit how it does.

If you get your retention up then YouTube's magical wizard council will take notice and send more viewers your way.

(Pictured below is a YouTube wizard in the wild)

 

[Dewey316]

I don't think there is a magic length. It's about making a good video at any length. I e had long videos get great retention, and short ones do badly. I have four examples. 2 longer vids, and two short ones.

Longer vids.

Both vids over 10 minutes. Very different retention rates. It is a matter of how many people watch, and how interested they were.

Two short vids.

Now with the short vids again, very different.

Also, sometimes a vid will start out doing well, and YT will push it out and you will see a drop in retention. Because you are getting views from new people. So all these numbers are relative. If you start off hot, and then see impressions start to take off but retention drop off, that may not be a bad thing. You are getting new viewers.

 

[Guest]

Like a skirt: Long enough to cover the important bits, short enough to keep their attention.

My most popular video is (120k views) is only 3:39.
My second most popular video (74k views) is 6:03.
My third most popular (74k views) is 9:19.

No consistency, nor do I think their should their be. If all of your videos need to fit some sort of cookie-cutter shape than you might end up with a cookie cutter channel.

Strive for what is ideal, not what your limitations are or what other bloggers are doing.
Study those analytics, because they're your audience telling you what they do and don't want.

At the end of the day though, it's all going to come down to what you do or don't want to make of your channel and what you do or don't want to do for your audience.

I published a video 50 days ago that has 1.4k views and is 2:18 long, but has -1 subscribers.
I published a video 41 days ago that has 700 views and is 9:13 long, but has +10 subscribers.

Start with what your end goal for your channel is and work your way backwards from there.

 

[R-Rated]

There are some articles online from places like VidIQ. They say that for videos longer than 5 minutes then retention of 50% is good and that is with 70% retention at the 30 second mark. They go on to advise creators to make the video as long or as short as you need but be mindful of being succinct because if you drag out a topic then the audience retention goes down.

Basically a lot of great information from subject matter experts is over VidIQ about this topic.

 

[Moto Mengy]

I just try to keep my vids between 10 - 15 minutes, but I have many which are both shorter and longer too. Basically whatever length it ends up being is fine by me!

 

[Baldbiker]

Good feedback guys. I wanted to add that many successful vloggers will often design a video around the event, rather than the length, and depending how much content they include, will be what determines it's length. A lot of travel type vlogs will consist of what happened that particular day, and usually doesn't get cut off halfway through the day simply because content hit 10 minutes. Then other vloggers will include the entire journey in one video and upload a 2 hour mega episode. (by what sorcery they can upload such a monstrosity is unknown to me) So this is all food for thought too.