Also called Reels, vertical video
Short-form video is vertical video of roughly fifteen to ninety seconds, distributed by recommendation rather than by following.
The format's defining property is not length but distribution. Short-form feeds serve content to people who do not follow the account, which makes it the fastest way to reach new audiences and the least reliable way to reach existing ones.
Retention drives everything. The proportion of viewers still watching at three seconds, and at the end, determines how far the platform pushes it, which is why the first second carries more weight than the production quality of the remaining sixty.
It is a poor conversion surface on its own. The reliable pattern is short-form for reach, a bio link for the destination, and email for anything that needs to arrive reliably later.
In practice
A clip reaching 200,000 non-followers can add a few hundred subscribers — the reach is the point, the conversion happens elsewhere.
Common mistake
Judging short-form by follower growth alone. Its job is reach; expecting it to sell directly leads people to abandon a format that was working.
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