Who in Their Right Mind Watches Short Videos to Learn?

The Purpose of Watching Short Videos

When people watch short videos, they're mainly looking to have fun and relax. It's a bonus if they can learn something along the way.

Think about who watches short videos, when, and under what circumstances. Hardly anyone watches short videos with the sole purpose of learning. If they really want to learn, they usually search for relevant content in books, articles, long - form videos, or lecture courses.

Users with clear goals search for specific content using keywords. So, when publishing articles or short videos, the title is crucial, especially for short videos. In most cases, the title is the only thing that can get your video discovered.

"Scrolling" through short videos means users receive information passively, as it's recommended by the platform's algorithm.

Attracting the Target Audience

So, how can you make your target users see and want to watch your content? How can you get your content in front of them? A good rule of thumb is: target a specific group of people, but don't make your content too niche.

You're trying to attract a certain type of people, and people don't focus on just one thing. If your content is too specialized, it'll be hard to break through the traffic ceiling and will be confined to a small audience.

For example, if you're targeting office workers who want to quit their jobs, you can talk not only about workplace topics and office politics but also about renting in big cities, dating and marriage issues, and employment problems. These topics may seem broad, but they all appeal to the same group of people.

You can divide your content proportionally: 50% should be niche - specific and professional, and the other 50% can be other related content.

Keeping the Audience Engaged

As mentioned at the beginning, people start watching short videos mainly for entertainment and to kill time.

As long as your content is interesting enough to provide emotional value, or if it offers a lot of useful information right from the start, making viewers think it's worth saving and useful to them, you can stop them from scrolling and get them to watch your video.

Speaking from my own experience, I've spent a lot of time watching short videos. Regardless of the video's field or industry, in terms of video type, presentation style, and content structure, I generally watch these types of content:

Purely Entertaining Content

This includes movie clips, variety show segments, and funny skits, which are great for killing time and relaxing.

Tool - type and Practical Videos

These videos can solve specific problems, such as how to find an apartment in a big city, what to watch out for when buying insurance or a house. The main feature of these videos is that they can solve real - world problems. The demand is high, the pain points are obvious, and they have high收藏 value. Usually, many people may not watch the whole video but will definitely save it. If they think the account is professional, they may even follow it.

Opinion - based or Growth - oriented Content

Opinion - based content often involves discussing current news and expressing personal views on various matters. Sometimes, the blogger has a certain professional background in the field.

Growth - oriented bloggers, like those who challenge themselves to do something for 100 days, such as completing 100 tasks, as well as vloggers, lifestyle bloggers, and challenge bloggers, fall into this category.

Most growth - oriented bloggers have one thing in common: they do things that you want to do but haven't or are afraid to do for various reasons. So, you want to follow them to see how they do it and how they solve problems. You might even give them advice. If they succeed, you'll feel happy too.

From the perspective of an ordinary user, these are the types of short - video content that I might scroll through, watch, and follow.

From this, we can make a simple inference. When creating content, we should think about how to attract the users we want and keep them engaged.

Daily Reading & Writing by Xiaolu 2025.04.19 [Day 593]