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Short form videos are short vertical videos, often between 15 and 60 seconds, made for social media platforms such as TikTok, Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts. These vertical videos are also called social videos.
Examples of short form video formats
Explainer videos, testimonials, how-tos and street interviews often work best as short form. Example: a brand sums up a before/after result in 15 seconds, without an intro, because viewers need to understand what the video is about within 3 seconds.
Need more time to tell your story? Take a look at long form video.
Why short form video works
TikTok and Instagram Reels first test a new video with a small share of your followers and decide, based on watch time and interaction, whether to show it more widely. A video that doesn’t grab attention in the first few seconds stops there. On Instagram the difference is big: 52% of users engage most with videos under 60 seconds, compared to 19% with longer videos (Sprout Social, 2026). Short form also wins in the research phase: 63% of consumers prefer to watch a short video to learn about a product or service, compared to 12% who would read an article (Wyzowl, 2026).