Videos are engaging and an easy to understand content format, which has made them a popular marketing tool. The video streaming market size was valued at USD 455.45 billion in 2022 and is projected to grow from USD 554.33 billion in 2023 to USD 1,902.68 billion by 2030, exhibiting a CAGR of 19.3% during 2023-2030, according to Fortune Business Insights. While videos themselves are engaging, not including closed captions means you are potentially missing out on a significant portion of your target audience. A digital transcription company can provide closed captioning services to ensure that your videos reach a wider audience.
Like the majority of visual content, video is simple to comprehend and consume. It can send a message instantly with the minimum amount of focus and attention from the audience. These are some reasons why 75% of marketers already employ videos in their marketing. Despite the fact that the human brain absorbs visuals 60 times quicker than words, there are still good reasons to watch films with text and, most importantly, closed captions and subtitles. In busy social media feeds, captions hold the key to creating movies that make viewers want to browse through them endlessly.
What are Video Captions?
Video captions are text overlays that convey the narrative of the video without having to turn on the sound. Dialogue, narration, and any additional audio effects that may be included in a video are all conveyed through captions. They include any background sounds—like loud crashes, honking automobiles, or barking dogs—that can be essential to comprehending what’s happening on screen, as well as the time and genre of music playing. You can have closed or open captions.
Learn about the significance of adding closed captions.
Reasons Why You Should Add Captions to Video
- To make the content more engaging: People are always on the go and it may be difficult to watch the video with the speakers on. Adding captions to the videos helps the audience to read and enjoy the content. It allows people to read the content and watch the video even when they are in a public place. Up to 83 per cent of consumers in the US watch video with the sound turned off and 80 per cent of people are also more likely to watch an entire video when captions are available.
- Better accessibility to the content: According to WHO, 5 percent of the world’s population have significant hearing loss, which is approximately 460 million. People with hearing disabilities are not able to enjoy a video fully. But adding captions to the video helps people with hearing disability enjoy the video just as everyone else. So, captions help support your audiences that are hearing-impaired to follow your content. And, the more accurate and detailed the captions are, the better.
- Boost audience attention: Adding captions to the video helps to capture the attention of the audience and this increases the viewing time of the video. With captions it is easier to get your message across and it also makes the video content perform better on search engines. Adding captions is also useful for students to better understand the concept. According to a study by the University of South Florida, 99 per cent of students reported that captions were helpful in learning about a topic. Captions help to improve reading skills and are especially useful for non-English speakers.
- Better SEO and content: Adding captions to the videos or video transcription enables a video to be found by search engines, including Google, through search engine optimization. Search engine bots cannot hear or watch the content, they crawl through written content to find out what the content is all about. So, adding transcripts helps the search engines find your content and rank it higher. In this way you can reach out to more people. Once the transcript is ready, you can even repurpose the content into blogs or articles to reach out to your target audience.
- Can be played at a low volume or with the mute toggled on: When was the last time you were using Facebook in public and a video started playing automatically on your feed? This is because the majority of videos on social media, including Facebook, are automatically played with the mute button turned on. More than eighty percent of Facebook videos are watched silently. This indicates that eight out of ten viewers of your Facebook video did not hear a word you said. By including captions, you can make sure that everyone who watches your social media videos can understand and follow along.
- Regardless of the audio quality of the video, adding captions to videos aids in user consumption of content: Your video may be at the mercy of your audio equipment or recording surroundings, depending on the circumstances. It could be challenging to make out the spoken words in your video over the background noise if it was recorded at a conference, event, or in a busy place. Regardless of the audio quality, adding captions to videos makes it easier for viewers to follow along with the spoken word.
- Ensures a smooth viewing experience: Increasing platform engagement is one of the biggest benefits of adding subtitles to your videos. Videos that have subtitles typically do better in terms of impressions, views, and likes—all engagement metrics. Videos with captions actually get more views than ones without them. Users of social media prefer to quietly peruse their feeds in between tasks like studying or working. Therefore, without subtitles to explain the text, a muted video will not make sense, and a sound-added video may come across as obtrusive. Relevant and captivating subtitles can make a big difference in your audience’s viewing experience when a sizable section is watching videos silently.
- Social media engagement: Videos automatically play silently on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. When you add captions to your videos, people who are skimming through their feeds will find them more interesting and accessible, which increases the chance that they will notice and choose to watch the audio.
- Business reputation: Adding captions to your films shows that you are committed to accessibility and inclusivity, which can enhance the perception of your business. You can respect all viewers and foster a more inclusive digital world by putting accessibility first.
Reach out to our digital transcription service to make your content more inclusive and appealing to a wider audience.
Google’s Live Captions Feature
Google’s Live Captions feature is an innovative accessibility tool that provides real-time captions for audio and video content on Android devices. With this feature enabled, users can see captions automatically generated and displayed on their screen as they watch or listen to media, even without an internet connection. Live Captions leverages advanced speech recognition technology to transcribe spoken words and display them in a readable format. This feature enhances accessibility for individuals with hearing impairments, allows users to follow along in noisy environments, and provides a convenient way to consume content.
Business transcription services for video captions play a crucial role in enhancing the accessibility and reach of video content. By utilizing these professional services for video captions, you can enhance the accessibility, user experience, and searchability of your video content.
