Have you heard mentions of the new world of Instagram Marketing? With the advent of texting and social media came the intense focus on sound-bytes in our communication with each other.  While it is often hard for marketers to pare down their messages, the online and mobile world are focused on quick bursts of facts and information.

So, how much time do you have for an online message?  8-10 seconds? Try 2-5 seconds as a person scans the web page or mobile device screen. What is a good rule of thumb for getting someone’s attention, maybe to click through to your site or for more information?

Think of the correlation with billboards and someone driving by it fairly fast. The rule has always been 7-10 words. Same applies to getting attention in a small banner ad on a website or app.

And, what about information on websites once they do click through? Keep the information to 250 words or 1-2 minutes of video. Any more than that and your reader or viewer will start to get antsy. Provide more links if they want more information, letting them decide how deep they want to go.

An example that we did recently for a client was to take a 90-minute video of a financial education seminar and broke it down into simple 2 or 3 minute segments. The person viewing can check out a segment first and then click on more according to their interest and time.