Apparently, even Amazon Prime Video wants to be TikTok now. Yes, the streaming service where you might sit down to watch a two-hour film or spend an entire weekend making your way through a television series is embracing even more short-form content.
Prime Video has introduced on-demand short-form news clips in the US, allowing viewers to quickly catch up on local and national stories through its News section. The clips are initially available on TVs and other living-room devices, with Amazon saying they’re also coming to the web and Prime Video’s mobile apps.
And our first reaction was probably the same as yours:
Does absolutely everything need to become short-form content?
Maybe not. But Amazon’s decision does tell us something important about the way we consume content online.
Short-form video has become so successful that some of the world’s biggest media and technology companies clearly feel they can’t afford to ignore it. For small businesses trying to work out what they should be posting on social media, there’s an important lesson in there.
Just perhaps not the lesson you might expect.
What Is Amazon Prime Video Actually Doing?
Amazon has expanded the news offering within Prime Video to include short, on-demand news clips covering national and local stories. Rather than having to watch a live news channel or a longer programme, viewers can browse shorter clips through areas such as Trending Topics and Local News.
The idea is fairly obvious. If you only have a few minutes and want to understand what’s happening, you can watch a short clip rather than committing to a full programme. Amazon had actually already begun moving in this direction before its latest news update.
Earlier in 2026, Prime Video expanded Clips, a scrollable short-form video feed within its mobile experience featuring moments from films, television programmes and other Prime Video content.
And Amazon certainly isn’t alone.
Streaming platforms have increasingly been experimenting with shorter video formats, while TikTok, Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts have already made scrolling through bite-sized videos an everyday habit for millions of people. Short-form video is no longer simply a social media trend.
It’s becoming a content format that businesses across the wider media industry are trying to incorporate into their products.
Why Has Short-Form Content Become So Successful?
The obvious answer is convenience. A 30-second video asks very little from us.
We don’t need to decide whether something is worth watching for half an hour. We don’t need to find somewhere comfortable and settle in. We barely even need to consciously decide to watch it.
- Scroll.
- Watch.
- Scroll.
- Watch.
- Scroll.
- Before you know it, considerably more time has passed than you intended.
Platforms such as TikTok have become incredibly good at understanding what keeps individual users interested and serving them a continuous stream of content. But the success of short-form video isn’t only about length. That’s an important distinction.
People aren’t necessarily sitting at home thinking:
“I refuse to consume anything longer than 47 seconds.”
They’re responding to content that gets to the point quickly, feels accessible and gives them something interesting almost immediately. That’s something small businesses should pay attention to.
Short-Form Video Has Changed What People Expect From Content
Think about how much competition there is for someone’s attention when they open Instagram, Facebook, TikTok or LinkedIn. Your business isn’t simply competing with other businesses in your industry.
- You’re competing with their friends.
- Celebrities.
- News.
- Football.
- Dogs doing something ridiculous.
- Holiday photographs.
- Memes.
- Influencers.
- Breaking news.
- And approximately 400 other things the algorithm thinks they might enjoy.
People can move on from your content with one movement of their thumb. That’s why the opening moments of your content matter so much. If you’re creating an Instagram Reel, you probably don’t need a ten-second introduction explaining who you are before eventually getting to the interesting bit. Start with the interesting bit.
Instead of:
“Hi everyone, I’m Stephen from Example Accountancy and today I wanted to jump on here because I thought it might be useful to talk a little bit about…”
Try:
“You’re probably paying for at least one business expense you don’t need.”
Now you’ve given somebody a reason to continue watching. Short-form content has helped train creators and marketers to respect people’s time. That’s a good thing.
But Does That Mean Everything Should Be Short?
No. And this is where we think businesses need to be careful. Every time a particular type of content becomes successful, there’s a tendency for marketers to decide that everything else is dead.
- Video is growing?
- Images are dead!
- TikTok is growing?
- Facebook is dead!
- Reels are performing well?
- Nobody reads anymore!
- Short-form video is popular?
- Every piece of content needs to be 15 seconds!
It rarely works like that. People don’t consume one type of content. The same person who spends 20 minutes scrolling through TikTok might then listen to a two-hour podcast. They might watch a 30-second Reel explaining a financial concept and then read a 1,500-word article about it. They could watch a YouTube Short during their lunch break and then spend three hours watching a film that evening. Short-form content hasn’t eliminated our ability to concentrate on longer things. It has simply become another extremely effective way of capturing our attention.
Even Amazon’s Own Strategy Demonstrates This
There’s something slightly ironic about a streaming service embracing short-form video. Prime Video’s entire business is built around content that requires significantly more commitment.
Films. TV series. Live sport. Programmes people might watch for hours at a time.
Amazon isn’t abandoning those formats because short videos exist. It’s adding another format for a different situation. And that’s exactly how we’d encourage small businesses to think about their social media content strategy. You don’t need to replace everything with Reels. Add them to the mix.
Short-Form Content Is Brilliant at Getting Attention
There are plenty of reasons we recommend short-form video to the small businesses we work with. It can introduce your business to people who don’t already follow you. It gives you an opportunity to demonstrate your personality. It can make complicated subjects easier to understand. It works brilliantly for quick tips, FAQs, demonstrations, behind-the-scenes content and opinions. And you don’t necessarily need expensive equipment or elaborate production.
In fact, overly polished content isn’t always what audiences want from social media. Sometimes a business owner speaking naturally into their phone about something they genuinely understand is far more engaging than a heavily scripted corporate video. That’s particularly useful for small businesses. You probably aren’t going to outspend huge brands on video production.
But you can be more human than them.
Your Short-Form Content Still Needs to Say Something
This is where businesses sometimes get the wrong idea about Reels and short-form video. They focus so heavily on the format that they forget about the content. They’ve been told they need Reels. So they make Reels. There’s some trending audio. A few quick cuts. Some text appears on the screen. Maybe somebody points at it. But what did the audience actually get from watching it? Short doesn’t automatically mean interesting. A boring 15-second video is still boring. A useful 90-second video might hold somebody’s attention all the way through.
Instead of asking:
“How can we make this shorter?”
Try asking:
“How long does this need to be to make the point properly?”
Sometimes the answer will be 20 seconds. Sometimes it will be two minutes. Sometimes it shouldn’t be a video at all.
Longer Content Still Has an Important Job
Imagine you’re a small business owner choosing a company to manage a significant project. You probably aren’t going to make that decision because you watched one 12-second Reel. You might discover the business through that Reel. That’s different.
- You see the video.
- It makes a useful point.
- You visit their profile.
- You look at their other content.
- Perhaps you click through to their website.
- You read a case study.
- You look at their services.
- Maybe you read a blog article answering a question that’s particularly important to you.
- Now you’re building trust.
That’s why a good small business social media strategy needs to consider the whole customer journey rather than obsessing over individual content formats. Short-form content can be brilliant at opening the door. Longer content can give people a reason to stay.
Don’t Turn a 30-Second Idea Into a Three-Minute Video
There’s another lesson from the popularity of short-form content that we think is worth applying more broadly. Stop wasting people’s time. If your point can be made properly in 30 seconds, make it in 30 seconds. If your LinkedIn post only needs three paragraphs, don’t turn it into twelve because you think longer content looks more authoritative. If a Reel has finished making its point, end it. Your audience doesn’t owe you their attention. You have to keep earning it. Short-form platforms have made that incredibly obvious. But brevity shouldn’t become an objective at the expense of substance. The goal is to make your content as long as it needs to be and no longer.
Small Businesses Shouldn’t Chase Every Content Trend
Amazon can afford to experiment. So can Netflix. So can every other enormous media company trying to work out whether people want TikTok-style experiences inside their streaming apps.
Your small business probably has slightly fewer resources. That’s why we’d be wary of changing your entire social media marketing strategy every time a platform launches something new. You don’t need to use every feature. You don’t need to participate in every trend. You don’t need to publish on every platform. And you certainly don’t need to turn everything your business knows into a 20-second vertical video. Think about your audience instead.
- Where are they?
- What do they care about?
- What questions do they have?
- What information would actually help them?
Then choose the format that communicates that information effectively.
- Sometimes that’ll be a Reel.
- Sometimes it’ll be a photograph.
- Sometimes it’ll be a carousel.
- Sometimes it’ll be a customer story.
- Sometimes it’ll be a 1,500-word blog post.
Like this one. If you’ve made it this far, apparently people can still read longer content after all.
So, Should Your Small Business Be Creating Short-Form Video?
Probably. For many small businesses, we’d absolutely recommend experimenting with short-form video content if you aren’t already doing it. There’s a reason Instagram, TikTok and YouTube have invested so heavily in the format.
And when a company like Amazon is introducing short-form experiences inside a service primarily associated with films and television, it’s another indication of just how influential the format has become. But don’t interpret that as an instruction to make everything short.
Short-form content is a tool. A very useful one. Use it when it helps you communicate something quickly, capture attention or reach new people. Then use other types of content when you need more depth.
Because your social media strategy shouldn’t be dictated by whichever format the biggest technology companies are currently trying to squeeze into their apps. It should be dictated by what works for your business and your audience.
Short-Form Is Here to Stay. That Doesn’t Mean Everything Else Has to Go.
We’ll admit it. Seeing Prime Video embrace even more short-form content did make us wonder whether every digital platform will eventually become a slightly different version of TikTok. But underneath the eye-rolling, there’s an important marketing lesson.
Short-form video is incredibly successful. People like content they can access quickly. They like creators who get to the point. They like useful information that doesn’t require an unnecessary time commitment. Small businesses should learn from that.
- Create Reels.
- Experiment with short videos.
- Improve your hooks.
- Get to the point faster.
- Make your expertise easier to consume.
- But don’t throw away everything else that’s working.
A strong social media presence isn’t built by blindly following trends. It’s built by understanding your audience, creating genuinely useful content and choosing the right format for what you’re trying to communicate.
At SMR Social, we’re a family of social media managers helping small businesses do exactly that. We create and manage social media content, develop strategies around the audiences businesses actually want to reach and manage paid social media advertising campaigns.
And if the next big update involves watching 12-second TikToks on your fridge…
We’ll probably end up writing a blog about that too.