Two key factors could further boost engagement in videos: duration and subtitles.
The average attention span of a Gen Z user is eight seconds, four seconds less than millennials. Reflecting that, the top one hundred YouTube videos’ average duration is fifty seconds, four times shorter than the average length of all posted brand videos.
Leading brands have caught on. To promote their competing voice products, Google and Amazon both created videos that range from fifteen to sixty seconds each. Starbucks keeps it simple with product-focused ads clocking in under ten seconds.
Keeping videos short may cater to those with short attention spans, but including subtitles helps increase engagement—even on longer videos—according to Gartner L2’s Video 2019 report. The reasons for adding closed captioning are rampant: they cater to the deaf or hard of hearing, 85% of videos on Facebook are watched on mute and 80% more people finish watching a video when it is subtitled.
Most video has yet to adopt this new trend of engagement: about twenty of the top one hundred videos on Facebook featured subtitles, while only ten of the top one hundred on Instagram.
To ensure that users are engaged with the content, optimize your viewing experience. There are two simple steps to set your video on the right path: keep it short, keep it subtitled.