Video on social media is like gasoline to a fire. Using video is a sure way to accelerate your social media presence. Almost everyone loves watching videos.

Videos that aren’t too long though.

Social media best practices tell us a video shouldn’t be more than one minute long. Instagram limits video uploads to a maximum of one minute.

One of the most popular formats of video though is the animated gif, which is usually about three to four seconds long.

Videos don’t have to be long to be effective in catching the attention of your audience.

That doesn’t mean videos can’t be long though, especially if they are being uploaded to a platform like YouTube, then a video can be two to five minutes or sometimes longer.

As with anything in social media, it always depends on your specific audience and what they prefer and respond to.

Like any content on social media, if a video is good quality and captures the audience’s attention, it can be longer. Good quality doesn’t always mean professional equipment and editing, but more so valuable content that’s entertaining.

Always use a video or gif if you can and when in doubt, keep videos to a minute or less.