Neil Patel — the SEO guy with big ears — ran a study that every content creator should know about.
Patel locked a bunch of people in a room, gave them all smartphones, and told them they could look at whatever content they wanted to.
The next day, he asked them what content they actually remembered.
They spent the most time looking at short-form content — but they didn’t remember any of it. All the Instagram reels and TikTok dances and Tweets went in one ear and out the other.
But they remembered the long-form content. They remembered the blog posts. They remembered the YouTube videos. Et cetera.
The lesson that Neil Patel took away from this — and the lesson that I took away from this — is that short-form content is overrated.
Short-form content is great for getting people in the door…
But if you want to make SALES, you need long-form content.
If you want people to remember you, and if you want to build authority with them, you need to be on their radar for more than just a few seconds.
Even the people who make short-form content know this.
Last year I worked with a business owner who posts daily minute-long reels on Instagram. He told me that when people actually book a call with him, they do so after binging a bunch of those minute-long reels.
In other words, they’re not watching one 1-minute video and then booking a call. They’re watching 10 1-minute videos and then booking a call.
So the lesson from this email is:
Short-form content can get you follows, profile visits, email subscribers, etc…
But if you want to make MONEY, you need to get people to spend more than a minute with you. And how do you do that? With long-form content.