Engaging videos are one of the most powerful storytelling elements around. Whether used for a personal post, to sell product, or to solicit donations, a good video with emotional appeal works wonders. However, many struggle to determine what elements are truly necessary to achieve optimal video engagement. Let’s take a deeper look into three popular video production misconceptions. Myth #1: Long videos are most effective. Long videos can be quite effective at the right moment in a customer journey. But, you must consider when most viewers are encountering your video. They aren’t at a movie theater or snuggled up on their couch with a bowl of popcorn. They’re probably doing a quick Google search or scrolling through their social media feed. There is also data on the continuously shrinking attention spans of viewers (Microsoft 2015). The old adage of KISS (Keep It Short and Simple) has withstood the test of time. It’s all about getting to the point quickly and effectively for maximum audience impact. Short videos are a perfect way to resonate with a target audience quickly. This burst of direct communication allows a larger percentage of your video to be consumed. It’s especially important for social media, but also for your website – including B2B marketing. If you analyze video engagement rates, they drop off over time. All things being equal, someone will watch a larger percentage of a 1-minute video than a 10-minute video. This probably makes sense to you, as I bet you often scroll through a longer video to get to a part that you think will interest you most, especially if you are just in a browsing session. It just doesn’t seem as daunting to watch a short video, especially for those viewers who are unsure of the value a video may provide. On the flip side, you may be saying that someone who views 20% of a 10-minute video is watching more content (in minutes viewed) than someone who views 100% of a 1-minute video. And, you’d be correct. But, why not just split your 10-minute video into smaller videos? That way, you’ll get more engagement by percentage AND by view time. Short videos are built for quick consumption. One of the best ways to use longer form videos is after a customer has shown interest in your shorter content. If you hook them with a short social media video, promotional video, or how-to video on your website, they are ready to move past the “Awareness” stage of the customer journey. Now, they may be more inclined to watch a longer form video that provides more in-depth information to push toward purchase consideration actions. Myth #2: Motion equals engagement. Always remember that the story is the most important element of a video. A good story captures attention. There are many movies with dazzling effects that don’t draw a crowd because the story is lacking. The same is true for your videos. After focusing on a story, you can add motion to maintain interest. The pace of your edits, the addition of motion graphics, and well-placed effects or montages can certainly help enhance engagement. But remember that the motion supplements the story; it isn’t the primary factor. In many cases, you should add motion where you can. But in other cases, just because you can doesn’t mean you should. If you check most viewer retention graphs for video engagement, you tend to see a reverse-J pattern at the front of the video. There is usually drop-of at the beginning of a video, and then it slightly recovers (but not to the initial level). While you should try to make a title and thumbnail of your video that is reflective of the content in the video, inevitably some viewers will immediately realize that they aren’t interested in watching the video. The one thing that makes this drop-off worse is lengthy intros to videos. It’s a sure way to deepen the reverse-J pattern in your video engagement, or even worse, lose some viewers altogether. You may think that a flashy intro with motion is cool to your viewers. But remember, you haven’t even gotten them to the start of the story yet. You are usually just reinforcing brand identity. This is already established by the text, thumb, and other content surrounding the video. For example, if you have a short 30-second social media video, do you really want a 5 or 8-second intro taking up such a high percentage of your video? Even if you have a 10-minute tutorial video, I’d argue an 8-second intro could be too long. Most people are going to scroll past until they see some action they’re interested in. A 2 to 3-second intro for a short social media video is probably sufficient in most cases. There is nothing wrong with a static image and readable text to establish the start of a video. After all, you want to get the viewer to the important parts quickly. One way to do this is to limit motion. But wait, I thought motion helped engagement? It does, but that’s when it has a purpose of adding value to the storyline. Spending more time with motion, such as write-on text or elements that fly in sequentially, are less seconds spent getting to your story and less percentage of video that your viewers are going to engage with. If I look at the engagement curves of videos where I go right into the story quickly, I have an engagement curve with a slow and steady downward decline. This is a normal audience drop-off over time. On videos where I had a longer introduction (sometimes unavoidable given factors of the specific video), I find a deeper reverse-J pattern. While you may not have created as many videos I have, I still encourage you to look at the data in your patterns. A couple of videos may not be enough to go by, but eventually you’ll see a pattern of what works and doesn’t work for