Rise of Reels and Shorts- Is This Worrying For Long Format Content?

Instagram,Tik Tok, Takatak, Youtube have become trending tools across online social media platforms for short video format. They offer a new way to share short video content, ranging between 15 to 30 seconds. But, given users’ drastically reducing attention span, this short-form content thrives on nothing but scrolling. The mediocre, repetitive content is almost killing its vibe. The unimaginative, less meaningful videos go in loops, despite making us hooked to the algorithm.

Another worrying factor is reels hampering long-form content’s importance and impact. The debate is ongoing, yet the results are quite evident. Is long-form content a waste for the writers? Does it fetch no results from search engines? Is long-form content obsolete, and are short-form videos better than the rest?

The questions are multiple. So, in this will blog, Romil Ramgarhia has explained every point in detail.

Reels: The Social Media Wave

Modern-day online audiences have less patience, he says. 55% of those who clicked on an article link now prefer to watch a 15 second informative or entertaining video. Yes, content utilisation has also evolved with the changing media consumption habits. Traffic patterns have changed with short-form content fetching more commitment. The result is “reels” becoming a favorite pastime for the young and old alike. However, it does not imply that long-form content has died.

Long term content still provides certain important answers to your content woes. It is part of developing a competitive content strategy. While the word count or video duration is hardly a determining factor, it is proven to impact your brand weightage. Moreover, it does not matter whether your content is long or short. You must ensure that it is genuine and unique. This will render ultimate value to your brand. Long term content works as part of a holistic content strategy. However, the growing popularity of social media content and reels is certainly impacting its existence.

Short Form Vs Long Form

Technically you create 400-word content to get it indexed by search engines. So in the marketing world, Romil firmly believes that short-form content is not enough. Long-form content yield better engagement improves user perception, brings repeat traffic by helping the reader understand better. Most importantly, it gives your brand credibility and authority.

Short-form content, on the other hand, is engaging. However, it isn’t easy to stay consistent all the time. Bringing out unique content every day is difficult in this fast-paced competitive world. The subjective and objective aspect is there too. It has perks like efficiency in capturing the audience’s attraction in seconds. But watching subpar reels on the loop is not valuable but addictive.

So, it is time that we bring back a balanced mix of both long and short-form content to benefit in the long run. Like everything else across the consumer and media ecosystem, given India’s diversity and demographic there exists an addressable market across the funnel.