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We all follow that one person on Facebook that loves to post long, rambling statuses. Whether it’s the latest news story or their thoughts on a professional sports team, they drone on and on. Lately, however, it seems as though this long-form status update is the new normal—and it is. Even brands are taking advantage of longer content across multiple marketing and digital platforms.

Let’s explore how long-form content is taking over the digital marketing world.

Blog Content

I have vivid memories of my internship director telling me to cap my blog posts around 300 words. Eight to ten years ago, this was the standard for blogging (especially for the small businesses the agency served). Blogs were used as a way to get to the top of search rankings, rather than a means of providing useful information to users.

With the rise of content marketing and other digital marketing tactics, written content must now accomplish a series of tasks:

• Build trust
• Answer a question
• Provide relevant, valuable information
• Position the author as a leader in the industry
• Strike up a conversation
• Entice readers to further engage with the community or brand
• Urge readers to take the next step in the purchase process

Naturally, all of these goals cannot be met in 300 measly words. As a result, long-form content has become the new normal. Plus, search engine algorithms now take word count into consideration when evaluating the quality of the content. In a study by serpIQ, they found that content ranking in the top two spots had an average of 2,450 words.

Long-Form Content on Social Media

In addition to lengthy posts from relatives and friends, brands are beginning to embrace long-form content on social media. Brands are using social media posts to share stories, customer experiences, product advice, and so much more, especially on Facebook.

While social media platforms do enforce a strict character restriction, these networks are beginning to experiment with larger counts. Twitter recently announced they were testing a 280 character limit, up from the 140 character limit, as a result of Twitter threads, organized chats, and conversations on the rise.

Video Content

With the introduction of vlogging, video content lengths have skyrocketed. Videos from top influencers can be upwards of 20 minutes long. Anyone who’s ever watched a TED Talk or a Casey Neistat video knows how long YouTube videos have become.

Is Long-Form Content Appropriate for Your Brand?

While other brands and individuals may be embracing long-form content, is it the right move for your brand? Only your analytics data can tell.

Take time to review your website, social media, and analytics data. What is the average time spent on site for your blog posts? Is your heat map tracking data telling you that users read your entire blog post? What are the click-through rates on social media posts with more copy? What is your average “watch time” on YouTube videos?

Your answers will vary per platform, topic, industry, and medium. Although long-form content has clearly outranked short-form content, a good mix of the two between your entire digital marketing strategy tends to work best. But listen to your data to be absolutely sure!