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While bite-sized, short-form content may rule much of the digital landscape, long-form content still has an important place in your content marketing strategy.
Incorporating a range of long-form content marketing types into your strategy can help you position your brand as an industry thought leader across multiple platforms and channels.
Learn about what long-form content is, the top benefits of including long-form content in your strategy, and seven examples of long-form content.
Long-form content is more in-depth than short-form content, so it has a higher word count or running time (if it's a video or audio piece) and takes longer to consume.
Generally, written content over 1,000 words is considered long-form. Videos over 10 minutes and podcasts over 20 minutes are also generally considered long-form.
Longer content is useful for exploring topics in greater depth and can demonstrate a brand’s expertise and authority while delivering relevant content to potential customers.
While long-form content refers to content that is longer — it doesn’t refer to content that is unnecessarily long for the sole aim of boosting search engine rankings.
Google has noted that it values people-first content. So, it’s best practice to avoid focusing on fluffy, unnecessarily long content. Instead, prioritize mindfully written people-first content that intends to be helpful and relevant to its audience.
While it’s indisputable that short-form content reigns for connecting with the nearly 5 billion social media users on social platforms — there are instances when audiences are seeking more information than they can get from a quick video or post.
According to recent research:
What does this data mean in the context of marketing? When customers want long-form content, they’ll make the time to consume it.
The key takeaway? There is interest in long-form content in many scenarios along the customer journey, especially in the consideration stage when a potential customer is actively researching before making a purchasing decision.
With information overload, chronic distractions, and multitasking, creating content that takes time to digest whether in written, audio, or video format may seem counterproductive.
However, there are a number of notable benefits to long-form content.
Although, in many cases, short, quickly consumable content is preferable for simple messages and quick engagement, there are times when your audience appreciates a deeper dive. For instance, when getting further into a purchasing decision and seeking out a comprehensive understanding of a product or service.
Long-form can benefit your brand by giving you the opportunity to thoroughly provide a solution to a complex problem. It allows you to expand and explain in greater detail and demonstrates how well you know the topic.
Your expertise and thorough solutions can leave a positive impression on readers and build trust for your brand. When your content is authoritative and consistently delivers answers that are valuable to your readers, your brand is seen as a reliable and trustworthy source of information.
There is no standard length for many types of content. Outside of social media posts, most content can be created in short-form or long-form.
Let’s take a look at seven examples or types of long-form content that can cover a topic thoroughly and effectively.
While there is no hard rule for the word count that constitutes long-form, it is generally at least 1,000 words.
Depending on the subject matter and intended purpose of the content, long-form articles may exceed 3,500 words or more, but only when the additional word count adds unique value to the piece.
Article types like in-depth guides and comprehensive reviews typically work well in long form.
Some landing pages may have large word counts if a product or service is complicated or requires in-depth content to educate and persuade potential customers.
A long-form landing page might include several sections, testimonials, interviews, case studies, infographics, and an FAQ section to thoroughly inform visitors of the features and benefits of a product.
By design, white papers and e-books are used by content marketers to explore topics, products or services in depth. These types of content also help to establish authority and expertise. They are often used for lead generation by being offered to an audience in exchange for contact information
Google describes a long-form video as a video that is typically longer than 10 minutes.
While long-form videos aren’t typically created for the majority of social media posts (except for some platforms like YouTube) — long-form videos are a good option for comprehensive tutorials and discussing complex topics.
Long-form videos are also helpful for repurposing content because you can take clips of your long-form videos to repurpose as short-form clips for social platforms.
Like white papers and e-books, webinars allow marketers to deliver in-depth content that helps the audience and spotlights a brand’s expertise and authority.
Longform podcasts typically exceed the standard 30 to 40-minute episode to explore a complex topic in greater depth or offer special programming such as an interview or extended analysis.
As potential customers approach a purchasing decision, case studies can be particularly impactful in revealing how your brand has benefited others. The word count needed depends on the content and messaging but can often exceed 1,000 words.
There are a number of benefits to incorporating long-form content into your content strategy from providing thorough coverage of a topic to establishing your brand as a thought leader and authority in the space.
Long-form content may appear as several different types of content including articles or blog posts, white papers, e-books, webinars, and podcasts. Then, you can also repurpose longer pieces of content into shorter clips or posts to broaden reach across multiple platforms.
Streamline your editorial process for long-form content and review it with Originality.ai’s best-in-class suite of tools including an AI Checker, Plagiarism Checker, and Grammar Checker.
Then, check out our guides to learn more about content marketing:
