A few letters ago we told you that we produced a whopping 17 videos for the nonprofit Susan G. Komen of Greater Atlanta. Well, all of those videos came from one day of shooting. We expressed to their executive director the importance of repurposing video footage. When it was all said and done we had videos that; engaged the big time sponsors, the incredible volunteers, the courageous participants and brought in new donors. The video we produced (above) was for the sponsor Kroger.Audience first, savings second.

We are not telling you to waste your budget by just randomly placing your videos where they shouldn’t go. How your audience interacts with video is based on where they view it. To engage viewers, it’s best to customize your video to the platform where it will be shared, whether it’s your website, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, or elsewhere.

When you plan out your video content and budget, make sure to speak to your videographer/production company about customizing the video’s length for different platforms. If you you already shot the footage, don’t worry – it’s something that can be completed in-house or given back to your videographer for a lowered fee. We always recommend our clients to keep the raw footage specifically for this purpose.

Viewers who are entertained and informed by these shorter versions will often continue to your YouTube channel or website to watch the full video.  Remember, these customizable videos receive more views and better engagement if you upload them straight to each social platform.

The optimal video length for YouTube is around 10x longer than it is for Facebook – 14.5 minutes for YouTube versus 1.3 minutes for Facebook.Twitter video’s maximum is 30 secondsInstagram’s video maxes out at 60 seconds