Short-form video

Short-form video is the dominant content format on Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, TikTok, and Facebook Reels. Practical length: 15–90 seconds, with the sweet spot around 30–45 seconds for retention-rate optimization. Above 90 seconds the algorithm penalizes early drop-off harder than it rewards longer watch time.

The format selects for tight hooks (first 1–3 seconds), constant visual change every 1–2 seconds, on-screen captions for sound-off viewing, and a payoff before the 60% mark. Talking-head shorts work; B-roll-driven cuts work; pure text-on-screen works. What doesn't work: slow openers, mid-roll setups, or anything that assumes the viewer will give you 10 seconds of patience.

In Kompozy, short-form video maps to three render paths: clipped shorts (cut from long-form sources), Persona Shorts (avatar talking head), and Marketing Shorts (4-second hook + demo).

Related terms

• Vertical video — Video shot or cropped at 9:16 aspect ratio, optimized for phone-held viewing on Reels, Shorts, TikTok, and Stories.
• Hook — The opening 1–3 seconds of a video or first line of a post — designed to stop the scroll and earn the next 5 seconds of attention.
• Retention curve — A graph showing the percentage of viewers still watching at each point in a video — the primary signal algorithms use to rank video.
• Clipped short — A vertical short-form video cut from a longer source (podcast, webinar, YouTube long-form) with auto-captions.

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