How Long A TEDx Talk Should Be?
By Bilyana Georgieva, TEDx Coach, Digital Nerd and Multi-Award Winning Professional Speaker, founder of The ‘Soon-To-Be a TEDx Speaker’ Program. You will often hear me saying What’s the point of doing a TEDx if nobody ever finds it on YouTube?
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Some people come to me and say
“I have too much to say and the time is not enough.”
and others are the exact opposite:
“I have too little to say and a whole talk is too long”
All in all, one of the first questions I always get is
“How long my TEDx talk SHOULD be?”
Know that the maximum length allowed by TED Headquarter is 18 min.
However, I’ve got for you 3 different perspectives and options to chose from:
- If you are willing to challenge yourself — do it in maximum 8 min
- If you think that will put too much pressure on you, then do it in max 10 min
- If you are presenting a complicated to explain topic, use the full length of 17 min (no typo mistake here! the pre- and post-roll slides with ads eat from your 18 min time)
Here is WHY those 3 options work best in 2022:
We all know that the attention span of the human brain shortened drastically during all the lock downs in 2020 and 2021. Because of this we saw a massive change on the video performance on YouTube, the place where most people come to watch TEDx talks.
Before 2020 the sweet spot for videos was 10–15 min. That shrank to 8–10 min in 2020 and towards the end of 2021 the trend amongst the most watched videos was 8 min, rather than 10 or 10+ minutes.
In other words
What people do now is to be drawn by a Title or a thumbnail (front cover picture) of the video, they click to watch it and somewhere on 30th or 60th second they hoover the mouse over the video to see how long it is.
Have you done that too?
The mentality in 2020 and 2021 changed! If a video is longer than 10 min people subconsciously start thinking
“Oh! I don’t have time right now .. I will save it and watch it later”
well, that ‘later’ for most of the videos never come.
Remember this today:
If you can deliver your TEDx talk in maximum 8 minutes you will have the chance to get more views compared to talks that are longer.
One of the best examples is Tracy Young’s — How vulnerability makes you a better leader, Nov, 2020 ,
When you do your talk within 10 min your video will still have the chance to get loads of views but they will be less than a version of an up to 8 min video
For talks that are between 10 and 15 min make sure you implement a short and snappy Key Phrase that gives the essence of your wisdom and you repeat it every 3 to 4 minutes. The views will be less, compared to an 8 min video, but that Key Phrase repetition will keep the audience’s attention on your message, rather than on how long the video is.
Great example is Alina Timofeeva’s — Fail But Never Give Up, Dec 2021,
Videos longer than 15 min have the least views compared to 8 min and 10 min. However, saying that, know that for talks presenting
- hot topics,
- very debatable ideas, or
- projects and science that no one ever talked about
time does not matter!
People are always hooked to watch such talks and they never hoover with the mouse over the video to check how long it is.
Of course, great story telling and public speaking skills are required to keep the attention on you and your talk so the people will completely forget about time and will be fully engage with your speech.
So How to design your talk to be so short?
I’ve got one answer only -
Cut the fluff!
I know its harsh but actually its true.
Get rid of everything that is not related to your topic or to the outcome you have in mind. I talked about this last week in the ‘7 easy steps to write a TEDx script’
Whichever option you chose for the length of your talk, remember that you need to feel comfortable with the timing. That’s one of the times in life when you better put low expectations for yourself, rather than big. You don’t need extra pressure with a long talk.
Thank you for reading this week’s newsletter. APPLAUD👏the article and COMMENT below any question you have. Also SHARE this article with your friends and colleagues. You never know.. they also might wish to become a TEDx speaker and have been looking for great tips.
Sending you love and energy!
Yours,
Bilyana
