“Too long, too short.”

Does content length really matter in digital marketing?

As marketers, we are all in the pursuit of magical formula for viral content! Yet, are there really ideal lengths concerning various forms of content marketing? We will discuss more this in today’s post.

“Yes!” Content length matters!

Prior data-driven research does suggest that there are ideal lengths to each social media platform. In particular:

• Twitter: 100 characters.
• Facebook statuses: 40 characters.
• Blog Content: According to Medium, it is 7 minutes and 1600 words. If you want your blog article to rank well on Google, it is 2450 words.
• Blog title: Between 8 to 12 words.
• TED talks: Around 18 minutes.
• Instagram hashtags: ideally six, maximum ten.
• Domain name: 8 characters, maximum ten.

This digital marketing research is usually informed by prior theories in the fields of biology and psychology. They are therefore highly credible in positing that there is indeed an ideal length for readers. Whenever we write too little, the content might not come across as engaging. Whenever we write too much, the brain might simply dismiss the content as “information overload”.

Therefore the above statistics can be regarded as a general guideline when doing content marketing. You won’t go too wrong with it.

“No”. Content length doesn’t matter.

Ever seen the abbreviations “TLDR” on social media? It stands for “Too long, didn’t read”.

The “ideal lengths” backed by research are usually done with the objective of examining the correlation between viral content and length of content. One of the limitations of such studies is that they tend not to take into account niche audiences. Instead, they aggregate the number of hits from the masses.

Therefore, if you are targeting a niche or a particularly narrow segment of the public, it might be wise to take other metrics into consideration.

Especially with millennials with really short attention spans, longer blog posts do not automatically equate higher engagement. For one, blog posts are static. In addition, recent research has shown that more and more millennials would rather watch short, lighthearted videos to entertain themselves, as opposed to reading anything long.

When targetting millennials, therefore, it is important to consider the tone of your content production, and also sometimes even whether your content production is linked to a bigger social cause.

Therefore, the key here is to really know your audience. Develop a sense of empathy–what do they normally read? How would they benefit most from the information you have provided to them? What are their pain points, and can you copywrite in a way to solve them?

Content length and the Asian context

For the Singaporean context, just take Night Owl Cinematics or Tan Jian Hao’s youtube channel for example. They mostly do light-hearted, funny videos, and sometimes work on informative, more serious content.

Once again, in the Asian context, we have dayre, mixi and mig.me as alternative social platforms especially for millennials to share their views as opposed to traditional blogging platforms such as WordPress. Marketing to different generations entails a different set of challenges, and we must remember the particularities of our audiences when we are writing.

And how about the millennials in Asia who favour consumerism, the idea of #yolo, and “living in the now”? Sometimes content might not even be permanent, evidence by the popularity of Snapchat and Instagram stories. The focus here is therefore the concept of “transience”, not “length”.

In addition, imagine the horror when you put so much effort into writing an “ideal” 2450 characters blog post, only to have it disappear a while later! Therefore, we should always remember whom we are writing for whenever we do content marketing. This will also inform our choice of social media mediums.

In this context, content length doesn’t really matter. What is important is to listen, and know intimately the needs of your audiences. Then write to address their needs deeply and address their various unique pain points.

Content length: Our recommendation.

Overall, our recommendation is that you can consider taking the “ideal length” as a good reference point when doing content marketing, but always keep in mind whom exactly you are writing for. Then it would be possible to decide, lengthwise, exactly how much to deviate from the “ideal” backed by research.

We hope you have enjoyed today’s post!