Short-form video,
explained

Hook

The first 1–3 seconds of a video that stops the scroll and makes a viewer commit to watching.

Call to action (CTA)

The single action you ask a viewer to take — follow, comment, save, or click — usually at the payoff.

B-roll

Secondary footage cut over the main talking-head shot to illustrate, add energy, and hold attention.

Reframe

Re-cropping a wide video into vertical while keeping the subject centered as the action moves.

Captions

On-screen text of the spoken words — essential because most short-form is watched on mute.

Retention

The share of a video viewers actually watch — the metric short-form algorithms reward most.

Watch time

The total time people spend watching your videos — a core ranking input across platforms.

Click-through rate (CTR)

The percentage of people who click after seeing your thumbnail or title — the gate to every other metric.

Engagement rate

Likes, comments, shares, and saves relative to views — a signal of how much a video resonates.

Aspect ratio

The width-to-height shape of a video — 9:16 vertical for shorts, 16:9 wide for YouTube.

Faceless video

Short-form video that doesn't show the creator — narration or text over stock footage or gameplay.

Short-form video

Vertical video under ~60 seconds made for TikTok, Reels, and YouTube Shorts feeds.

Transcript

The full written text of a video's spoken audio — the raw material for clips, captions, and repurposing.

Content repurposing

Turning one piece of long content into many formats — clips, posts, threads — to multiply reach.

Viral moment

A self-contained, high-interest segment of a longer video that can stand alone as a short.

Hashtags

Keyword tags that help platforms categorize a video and surface it to interested viewers.

Thumbnail

The still image that represents a video before it plays — the biggest driver of click-through rate.

AI video clipping

Using AI to find the best moments in a long video and cut them into ready-to-post vertical shorts.