As the saying goes, knowledge is power. For businesses and their staff, this is certainly true. Over the past century, the knowledge doubling curve has been rapidly accelerating. What used to require decades now takes hours. And with the increase in artificial intelligence and machine learning, total knowledge doubles more than twice each day. While no firm can keep pace with such a pace, it remains important that they still invest in learning and information efficiency. And while many approaches have been tried, smart businesses are finding short form video is definitely the way to go.
Short form video is everywhere in today’s world. The rapid popularity of TikTok opened the marketing world’s eyes to the fact that people crave video content. In fact, roughly two-third of people describe themselves as visual learners. Research has even shown that comprehension occurs 60,000 times faster when using video instead of text. Plus, people are twice as likely to share video content. That means that short form video training is a gift that keeps on giving. This explains why it’s essential for businesses in today’s world rely on video snippets in achieving information efficiency.
“Reels now makes up more than 20% of the time that people spend on Instagram. Video, overall, makes up 50% of the time that users spend on Facebook.” – Meta statement during recent Earnings Report
Evidence on Short Form Video
Over the last few years, social media companies have increasingly tried to emulate TikTok. The viewership and attraction of the site attributes its success to brief video segments perfect for rapid consumption. In fact, #LearnOnTikTok has over 7 billion views and over a million videos that are educational in nature. Likewise, many professional educators are the very ones who created these videos. As the pandemic forced online learning, educators had to adjust in order to maintain information efficiency. As a result, many became adept in developing microlessons of video content that were easily digestible. Clearly, their learners and audiences responded favorable.
There’s good evidence to support information efficiency with short form video content. In one study of nearly 8,000 learners, videos were compared to lectures and assigned readings. When used as replacement learning tool, videos helped learners move from a B average to a B+. And when videos were used adjunctively, students attained a full letter grade higher. In this setting, not all videos where short form video, but the effect was still profound. There is now evidence that videos a few minutes in duration or less may be even more effective and efficient. Plus, for businesses, they can be extremely cost-effective overall.
“Real teaching involves sight and sound, but also the context of how something is delivered in the vernacular of how a student actually learns.” – Nhon Ma, CEO and Cofounder of Numerade
Outsourcing Information Efficiency
Anyone who has swiped in Facebook/Meta/Reels, TikTok, or Instagram appreciates the appeal of short form video. They are engaging, brief, easy to understand, and relatable. At the same time, each of these social media companies leverage users’ viewing histories in selecting which video content appears. This increases the likelihood of engagement and makes information efficiency that much better. Understanding this, there are some notable companies now pursuing short form video training for companies as well. This has increased the number of opportunities for outsourcing in this area as a result. By leveraging many of the same techniques, they are achieving tremendous results for these clients.
(Outsourcing is a key ingredient in a competitive workforce–read more in this Bold story!)
One such company is Numerade, an edtech startup launched in 2018. The company was recently valued at $100 million after its latest funding round. In essence, Numerade sells short for video subscriptions that explain complicated subjects like mathematics and science. They offer bootcamp videos, step-by-step instructions, and quizzes in an asynchronous, highly contextualized fashion.
Best Practices in Short Form Video
In the recent past, long form video was utilized for company training and employee learning. In fact, this approach still is ideal for some content areas. Longer videos remain the bets approach for employee onboarding, health and safety instruction, machinery operations, and regulatory compliance courses. But prerecorded short form video is also excellent in realizing learning and information efficiency in other subject areas. This approach enables staff to access brief video nuggets asynchronously whenever they want, offering great flexibility. Likewise, this same type of format makes it easy to share with others. Both features are linked to enhanced information retention.
Certainly, not all short form video content is the same in quality or content. Content should be contextualized to ensure viewers are highly engaged. Relatable content has been shown to significantly improve knowledge acquisition. At the same time, video content must be authentic as this too boosts viewer engagement. And of course, short form video should be brief and easy to consume in a few minutes. By definition, short form video is less than 10 minutes in length with those on social media usually less than three minutes. By following these guidelines, greater information efficiency can be achieved. And ultimately, this leads to a higher chance of business success.
Making the Most of Your Investment
In the marketing world, short form video offers the highest return on investment today. The same looks to be likely for business training and education as well. Investments not only include the money spent on short form video but the time involved in creation and user time as well. The brevity and information efficiency of short form video definitely cuts down on user learning time. But costs and time in development can be significant. As a result, outsourcing these services to professionals makes a great deal of sense for many companies. But in any case, pursuing this type of strategy for training and development will be essential. Those businesses that appreciate the advantages of short form video will be the same ones poised for excellence.
