How long should a TikTok, Reel or Short be?

A TikTok, Reel or YouTube Short should be as long as one complete point takes to make, and no longer. For a professional explaining something on camera, that usually means about 30 to 70 seconds, with the point deciding where inside that range.¹³

Why not pick a target length and cut to it?

Because a target makes you pad short points and chop long ones. When we asked for the best passages in a set of videos, the strongest came back at 28, 33 and 33 seconds, and stretching them to a longer target would only have added filler. Cutting down to the sharp core of what was said is the better editorial call.²

How do you know a clip is long enough?

It is long enough when three things are true. The first sentence the speaker says works as the hook, with nothing added in front of it. The point makes sense to a viewer who has seen nothing else. And the clip ends because the thought ended.³

If any of the three is missing, adding seconds will not fix it. Pick a different moment instead.³

When is a clip too long?

When it no longer reads as a short. Somewhere past a little over a minute, a clip stops being a short and becomes a piece of the long video.¹

The opposite mistake is just as common: stopping a clip because a timer ran out. A good clip ends because the speaker finished, not because sixty seconds went by.³

Why is a short harder to make than it looks?

Because a long video is built for a different viewer. One financial adviser put it this way: "My long-form videos are designed for someone who's going to sit and watch something for 10 to 20 minutes, not optimized for catching someone's attention and delivering value within a 60- to 90-second period." A short has to find the part of that long video that works on its own, inside a minute or so.⁴