Should smaller YouTubers make their videos shorter?

[Tuurngait Gaming]

Hello I'm Tuurngait!
So I've been wondering... should small YouTubers make their videos shorter than usual?

My thoughts behind this are:

Less people will be watching your content, so if you keep it at a short range of 5-8 or so minutes, a person new to your channel might be more tempted to watch it because they'd rather not sit around 15-20 minutes watching content of a channel they've never heard of.

What do you think?

 

[Sin B]

Yes... and no.

The benefit of shorter content is; as you say people are more likely to stick around or click on the video, but at the end of the day if it's bad content whether it's 1min or 20mins people will click away. Longer videos tend to rank higher on YouTube's algorithm and more likely to end up on people's feed, and if your content is as high quality as possible the extra exposure is good for your channel.

Me personally I stumble upon random channels with big videos and some are so good I watch all of it, even though I've never heard of them.

In the gaming world you could keep videos shorter, but unless you're making compilations, montages, bloopers and similar stuff you're likely cutting out a lot of good gameplay features/footage/story/etc...

 

[Tuurngait Gaming]

You do make some pointers there! I feel like making a 5-8 minute long video that has good edits and time taken working on the content makes it worth a good watch. Sort of how Seananners used to make his videos. Short, clean and silly.
I often find it a hassle to watch a video that is 20-30 minutes long unless it's by someone I enjoy or if their voice is soothing. o:

 

[KatyAdelson]

I've moved this to the strategy / technique advice forum. ^^

 

[Tuurngait Gaming]

@KatyAdelson Thank you! Sorry for making you do that.

 

[GucciCarry]

I've always made most of my videos on average 3 to 7 minutes long. When I get bigger I'll make mine 10-12 minutes. People have short attention spans.

 

[Tuurngait Gaming]

I've always made most of my videos on average 3 to 7 minutes long. When I get bigger I'll make mine 10-12 minutes. People have short attention spans.

Especially me. I'm a professional ADHD person. I'm really good at being unfocused and s**t.

 

[sanitary103]

Out of all my years "youtubing", I think my longest video was maybe between 13-16 minutes; that was rare though. Most of my videos don't run past 8 minutes.

I think if the video is good, it will not matter. there are youtubers who have very long videos and do well. definitely be aware of your running times but if a video needs 10 minutes and it's done well, stay with it. no need to unnecessarily cut running time down just b/c you feel you have to.

 

[georgia grace]

i think i'd agree with you on this one. if you content isn't appealing either way it doesn't matter, but a lot of people don't have a ton of time to watch videos so they'll be much more willing to spend 3-5 minutes on someone they don't know rather than 20 minutes. then if they like your stuff they'll stick around

 

[KiddieToysReview]

All else being equal (quality, seo, etc) a shorter video will give you a much higher % retention. There is evidence to suggest that videos with high to very high % retention are more successful (watch time being equal).

Ex:
(1) 10 min video, av watch time = 2 min, av retention = 20%
(2) 2 min video, av watch time = 2 min, av retention = 100%

If the algorithm was going to choose a video put promote, I would put my money on (2) in most, if not all, cases.