Lauren Bateman argues that long-form content is essential for educators to build relationships with viewers because it allows time to explain and demonstrate. She recommends using short clips as discovery tools to attract new viewers who may then watch longer, instructional videos (described as a funnel from short discovery clips to longer teaching content).
I still believe that long form content, especially if you're an educator like me, long form content is still king. It's how you're going to build the relationship. Like that video was 14 minutes long. But I needed the time to explain things, show them, take my time. I can't do that in a 30 second clip. I can't do that in a 60 second clip. But by doing short clips like this, I'm introducing myself to people who may have never wanted to sit down and watch a 14 minute video of me. We call those discovery videos in the YouTube land. Your discovery videos, the video that gets sent out to lots of people and they learn who Lauren Bateman is, they've never seen you before. And then all of a sudden, oh, look, here's another video of that Lauren Bateman girl. Oh, that girl with a guitar. Because that's how it starts. It's like, oh, I like this person with the guitar. And then all of a sudden they learn that your name is Lauren. She actually teaches guitar. I think I want to learn guitar. Let me go check out her channel. So that's what I find. It's kind of like a funnel and you use the short videos to get in people's faces.
