Ian Pearson
Aside from primary area of interest and expertise in e-marketing with Mediagurus, Ian could be tagged also as a passionate sports fan, nature, and photography
Having captions in your videos will drastically enhance their rate of effectiveness. How? Well, in order to answer this question. We need...
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Having captions in your videos will drastically enhance their rate of effectiveness. How? Well, in order to answer this question. We need to start by examining the way in which people use captions, to begin with. Second, We need to dissect all the reasons why people react to videos, click through the CTA button, and share content. Lastly, it’s important that we understand the way in which people interact with content as a whole. So, here’s how captioning can drastically increase the impact of your branded videos. Thus boosting your chances of success, as well.
According to one survey, as many as 85% of all videos on Facebook are watched without sound. This means that, unless it’s a completely text-less script, people wouldn’t be able to understand what’s going on if there were no captions. Sure, an automatic captioning option is often used in these scenarios but the truth is that they are not 100% accurate. For a person listening to a video while watching these captions, mistakes are obvious and easy to fill in. However, manual captioning is always a superior choice.
According to some of the latest surveys, around 466 million people in the world have disabling hearing loss. The older the demographics get the worse the situation becomes. For instance, one-third of people over 65 have problems with hearing loss. Keep in mind that this is a massive audience that would be completely discarded without the use of captions in your videos. Moreover, if you are in an industry that targets older demographics, adding proper captions to your videos becomes a top priority.
One of the biggest reasons why you should add captions to your videos is because of a higher level of completion. When observing partially completed videos, those without subtitles have an average of 66% of completion. The completion of videos with subtitles was at 91%, which is a massive difference. It’s also a great investment in your content marketing. The last thing you want is to produce content that people won’t watch until the end. This is especially true since the branded message often gets pushed to the very end of the video (for dramatic impact). So, if you want people to watch your content whole, try adding captions using a caption generator.
Experts behind Alpha Omega Video claim that, in order to create a strong branded message, video professionals need to target every sense of their audience. Previously, we’ve already mentioned that a lot of videos get watched without audio. So, what are video production experts supposed to do? Are they supposed to ignore any audio-based means of expression like a voice-over or background music? Of course not, they need to act as if every video will be watched the way they intended it to be but also acknowledge that there are people who will approach this differently. Don’t discard this potential audience by failing to add captions.
Whenever you produce a piece of content, you need to be aware of the fact that there are two types of audience. First, there is your human audience. They interpret your content through their own subjective impressions. Then, there are Google bots. They do not see content in the same way we do. In order to interpret it, they need metadata. One of the ways in which they can analyze video content is through captions. In other words, with the use of captions, this video will be easier and more accurately indexed.
By adding a chance for non-native speakers to understand you (captioning in another language), you are drastically expanding your potential target audience. This is especially true if you’re from a non-English speaking country and want to add captions in English/your native language. Keep in mind that another language group that you target has its own portion of the internet that is ranked completely differently. This means that if it’s hard to become competitive globally, you can always try to improve your local ranking. In the field of digital marketing, this is achieved through captioning.
Various surveys have shown that videos with subtitles have more shares, better reactions, and more CTA clickthroughs. This is quite expected. People often share for validation and since they get more reactions to videos with subtitles (because the majority of people on social media watch videos without sound), they are bound to hit their marks. This means that they will (either consciously or subconsciously) drive a parallel between videos that have a greater reach (those with captions) and those that often fail (without captions). Next time, they are more likely to share a more successful part.
Never before was it so easy to create subtitles as it is today. You see, there are a lot of programs that make it easy to manually add subtitles. There are even some platforms that do automatic captioning. Now, this method may sound a bit sub-optimal but the truth is that algorithms and AI-assisted tools and software really do a great job. If anything, they add quite a bit of value to those who want to add more than 2 or 3 languages. After all, people from different language-speaking areas usually aren’t that picky. They understand that they are not your primary target audience and they are more tolerant towards inaccuracies.
One more thing worth taking into consideration is the circumstances under which the video is viewable. If people receive a link to your video and the video is not captioned, chances are that they won’t be able to enjoy it on public transportation, during meetings (although unethical it’s what the majority of people do), etc. The thing is that they might be genuinely interested in the subject matter and be determined to check it out once they get home. By that time, nonetheless, they might simply forget about this. This will help you overcome this problem.
Lastly, when you use captions, your audience gets one more thing to focus on. In other words, it’s quite efficient in grabbing the attention of your audience. Keep in mind that audio content allows people’s vision to be directed to something else. Split senses always imply split attention. This can be quite problematic if you’re trying to send an important branded message. So, having captions in your videos might enhance your chances of success quite drastically by ensuring that your message hits the mark with greater accuracy.
The most important thing worth mentioning is that captions don’t really hurt your video content in any way. If they want, your audience can use them; if not, they probably have an option to just switch them off. In other words, while the advantages are numerous, the downsides are virtually non-existent. Now, combine this with the fact that adding them to your video is a relatively simple and inexpensive process, from the logistical perspective. In other words, there’s no reason for you to skip this whatsoever.
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Aside from primary area of interest and expertise in e-marketing with Mediagurus, Ian could be tagged also as a passionate sports fan, nature, and photography
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