Why must you transcribe and caption your videos? This is a question most video creators and marketers ask. Video marketing is one of the most powerful tools to communicate your brand message and connect with potential clients. However, the problem is that not everyone will be able to understand what you’re trying to say if your videos do not have captions or transcriptions. This could be for several reasons, like hearing disabilities or non-native English speakers.
Captions and transcriptions allow deaf, non-native English speakers and hard-of-hearing individuals to watch your videos without any difficulties. There are plenty of benefits to transcribing and captioning videos. Here we’ve listed eight reasons you must use video transcription and captioning for both.
What are Transcripts and Captions?
Transcription is a process where audio is converted into written text. Captioning divides the transcript into time-coded parts that are known as caption frames. Transcripts and captioning occur at the bottom part of the screen.
Transcription vs Captioning
With transcription, the text document will not have any time information. There are two types of transcripts that can be made:
- Verbatim Transcripts – with verbatim transcripts, the audio is transcribed word-for-word. This would include sound effects and utterances. This transcript type is mostly used for scripted speeches like movies, skits, or TV shows.
- Clean Transcripts – Edits are made to make the text read fluidly with clean transcripts. This type of transcript is good for unscripted content like recorded events or interviews.
Captioning is the process of splitting the transcript text into portions or chunks known as caption frames. Time coding is used for each frame to synchronize with the audio.
If you’re wondering how to add text to video online, there are plenty of video editor platforms available to add text to your videos. These platforms offer a wide variety of editing options like adding text, subtitles, background, effects, etc. One such popular platform is InVideo. Right from filters, transitions, to effects, and more, you can quickly showcase your supers with impressive templates. It’s a great video maker that allows you to make excellent videos within minutes.
8 Benefits of Transcribing and Captioning Your Videos
- Accessibility for People with Disabilities
71% of people with disabilities leave a website almost immediately if they find that it is not accessible. That’s one of the major reasons why you need to transcribe and caption your videos. Closed captions were earlier designed to provide a great viewing experience for people with hearing disabilities. Transcribed and captioned videos provide a great alternative for people with hearing loss. When you have closed captions and text, it allows all types of viewers to consume the content well and thus helps to increase your audience.
- Better Comprehension
According to a study conducted with Oregon State University, it was found that 52% of students found video captions helpful. Video captions and transcriptions can be very helpful for learning. When you use closed captions in your videos, it can enhance the viewer experience, especially for those non-native English viewers. Another advantage of captioning videos is that it is beneficial for children as it helps to improve their learning skills.
A Michigan State University study concluded that “captions are beneficial because they result in greater depth of processing by focusing attention, reinforce the acquisition of vocabulary through multiple modalities and allow learners to determine meaning through the unpacking of language chunks.”
- Abides with Laws
60% of people with hearing disabilities are either in the educational or workforce setting. There are many anti-discrimination laws put in place to protect the rights of people with disabilities. Some of these laws require closed captions for videos to be accessible for everyone. Over the last few years, many organisations have been sued for not providing proper audio and online video content captioning. So, the best way to stay away from any legal battle is to go ahead and proactively caption and transcribe your videos.
- Flexible Viewing in All Environments
With transcription and closed captions, viewers can watch videos in all types of environments. Even in noisy places where sound may be obscured, captions will convey the message or speech properly. Captions also allow viewers to enjoy videos on mute settings in environments like a train or library. Auto-playing videos on mute has become a common practice on social media platforms. About 85% of videos on Facebook are viewed without sound.
- Search and User Experience
Video transcripts make videos more searchable. It allows viewers to find the videos they are looking for and allows search engines to crawl your content and drive traffic to your website. When you have interactive transcripts, users can easily search for keywords within transcripts to see where those keywords appear. If a user wants to jump to a particular spot within a video, they must click the word, and the video will start playing at that particular spot.
- Increased SEO and Video Views
Search engines cannot watch videos, but when you add transcripts to your videos, it allows the search engines to crawl the text of your video or audio content to be indexed properly. A Discovery Digital Networks study showed that videos on YouTube with captions had 7.32% lifetime views and 13.48% more views in two weeks.
- Easy Translation into Foreign Languages
Getting video content transcribed is the first step to creating subtitles in other languages. According to statistics, 80% of YouTube views come from outside the United States, and eight out of the top ten countries with the most YouTube users are non-English speaking countries. This is one of the major reasons video translation is very high in demand. Apart from helping your content reach a wider audience, translated captions and transcripts can help to boost SEO.
- Easy Creation of Derivative Content
Many content creators and market researchers use audio or videos to create reels, montages, and clips, but going through content without transcripts can be a stressful and daunting task. When you use captions and transcripts, it can easily search and scan for topics and key phrases to be used in different content.
Transcription and captions prove very beneficial for you, especially if you’re a business trying to put out a message. Transcriptions help provide context, especially for people who do not want to watch an entire video. Transcripts and captions allow more people to enjoy your video content even when they have to move fast through it quickly while on social media.
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