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Videos captions aren't an essential feature for advertisers. This is the reason.

May 25, 2023

57 percent of Americans view videos when they are in public. If you've watched an online video while you were walking, at work or on the move and you're familiar with what it signifies -- the video should be created for silent viewing.

What's the solution? Captions. They draw the viewer to them and keep their interest, even with audio off.

In actual fact, 80% of users aren't happy with Facebook advertisements that blast high-pitched audio even when they're not anticipating the sound. And LinkedIn confirms the majority (80%) of their video views occur in silence mode.

This makes it a solid case for captioning your videos. There's a lot more to this story too -- because captions don't just encourage people to watch your video but they also enhance your communication's accessibility, understanding and compliance.

We'll guide you through it.

Seven benefits of captioning your videos

1. Meet your viewers' expectations

The first thing to remember is that captions are required because your target audience expects that you include them in your video.

The younger generation, particularly youngsters, are significantly higher than those of older age to use captions. In reality the majority of viewers within the ages of 18-25 say they use subtitles all or at least a portion of the time.

If they can't find captions in your posts? You'd see them exit quicker than you could mention knife.

What's also important to understand here is the context that people use to watch videos today. One example is that the majority of viewers watch videos using phones which is a reference to the fact that a majority use their mobile devices to watch videos.

A lot of people watch videos with their snoring spouse in their midst or with a child they've only just put to sleep. And dare I say, some consume them in boring gatherings, while others view the videos while waiting to grab their Starbucks (Spanish Iced Latte anyone? ).

Additionally, distractions have only just skyrocketed over the years. In other words, viewers could easily miss a vital detail on your video. The good news is that captions have a major role to play in helping to solve this. They make it easier to process your video in an environment that is sensitive to sound, such as the railway station.

There's no reason to be surprised that LinkedIn observed that videos designed for quiet viewing are 70percent more likely to be enjoyed through to the final. The research conducted by Facebook confirms this same idea:

"Captioning videos improves their view time by 12%."   Facebook research

2. Enhance accessibility of your content

In the US alone, roughly 15% from the American adult population (aged 18 and over) are experiencing difficulty hearing. Globally, over 1.5 billion people live with hearing loss within one or more ear which is 20% of the world's people.

Captioning your videos can make your videos accessible to viewers.

Furthermore, although research isn't conclusive about captions improving accessibility for folks with ADHD however, it is clear that captions on videos can help retain your message more effectively.

3. Enhance the content's stickiness

Captioning your videos can enhance their effectiveness by aiding you:

  • Keep the attention of viewers.
  • Improve your message's comprehension
  • And, boost your content's memorability

Shortly, captions for videos aren't just important for getting the viewers to see your video but also to help retain the message.

It is interesting to note that this can be applied to the native as well as non-native speakers with studies confirming the fact that native speakers with no hearing impairment can also benefit from captions to watch videos. Actually, the study concluded that video captions enhance students' learning experience.

And a Preply poll shows that 61% of people make use of video captions in order to comprehend accents that are difficult to grasp for them.

4. Engage and reach a larger group of people

Subtitling videos makes them available to people who are hard to hear. However, there's even more. With captions added it is possible to open your website to your intended audience in other countries.

The concept is straightforward The idea is simple: make the same content, however add native-language captions for your target viewers from different nations. Along with increasing your reach, this also enhances the ROI of your video.

(Easy, isn't it? It's also quick and reliable since human-created captions are 90% correct. So you only need to go through the transcript one time and you're ready for a wider audience )

5. Create content for video that is compliant

Yet another benefit of captioning your videos is that you can check the compliance of your checklist -- a super smart option to protect yourself from litigation.

Essentially, for all websites and social media-related content that you produce for marketing it is essential to conform with the guidelines set out within the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).

It outlines the need to ensure that your material particularly video-based content, accessible to people with disabilities. Alongside captions, WCAG stipulates that it is important to ensure that the subtitles contain:

  • Perceivable. This means that they are presented in a manner it's easy to comprehend
  • Operable. Users should be able view your captions in any interface they choose to use
  • Understandable. The captions are presented in an easily digestible way

6. Improve your search engine visibility through improving your video's SEO

Google employs robots to look over the content that has been published (technically known as crawling content) to decide if the content is worthy of ranking for a particular keyword.

The issue with video content? It's visually oriented and Google's bots aren't able to comprehend what's within the video. This is why an easy but effective method to increase the ranking of your videos is to include transcripts.

Text-based subtitles are, as such, easily readable for Google's search robots. Actually, transcripts do not only show your video contains your target keywords, but they also show synonyms and related keywords. They also boost your rank.

Shortly, you should add captions to your video to increase your visibility.

7. Amplify the content experience you offer

With 91% of businesses using videos as marketing tools it is becoming competitive.

Apart from ensuring your video's quality is top-notch It is also important to pay attention to the nitty-gritty specifics to enhance your customers' experiences with your content.

First step is subtitling your videos. But here's the thing that you can enhance your experience by taking care of all the little details in the process of adding captions for your video. Take these steps:

  •   Select a easily read font size and  

Utilize at minimum 22pt font and stay away of fancy fonts. Use fonts that are easy to read like Arial, Times, Verdana and Helvetica Neue.

  •   Captions of the position for maximum readability  

Once you've added subtitles to the video, check the subtitles to make sure there's no interruption to the content. Also, break lengthy subtitle lines down to shorter ones to make them easier to read on your screen.

  •   Pick the correct color contrast for your captions  

Select a font colour for your captions that doesn't blend in with the rest of the video's color scheme. WCAG suggests that you use a contrast ratio at a minimum of 4.5:1 to ensure that the captions are also readable for colorblind people.

Simply put, regardless of the device that your viewers use to watch your video, make sure the subtitles are easy to be read and understand.

Are you ready to include captions on your videos?

Remember, good subtitles play the same role in a audio track in a video by:

  • Increasing your watch time and involvement
  • Boosting content accessibility and compliance
  • Delivering a fantastic experience with content

Make sure to add subtitles to your video content within the video creation workflow. Naturally, adding manually these captions is a huge time-suck. However, adding automated captions to your videos is an ideal solution to this issue. It's simple, fast, and it's a time-saver with numerous benefits -- it's a marketing guru's dream in the real sense.