Why are Captions a must in Social Media Video Content?
In 2018, Cisco reported that online videos will make up more than 82% of all consumer internet traffic by the end of this year. It is 15 times higher than it was in 2017 and no doubt that social media platforms have contributed to this growth. Whether it is on TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, or other social media platforms, video content has become a central part of any content strategy, and it’s therefore mandatory for every brand to create relevant videos on social. Will Brooke, co-founder of Slate, a content creation platform that allows companies to unlock the full potential of their social media, has recently shared with us his thoughts on adding captions to social media content. Captions are an important final step in video creation that is frequently ignored by social media managers. Fortunately, now caption creation is a new feature in the Slate Platform, making this final step effortless.
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Captions add significant value to video content
“Are any of your followers non-native speakers? Maybe your followers are hearing impaired. Or, like most of us, 92% of social media users have their sounds off when scrolling through social. Whether it’s for accessibility, comprehension, or pure engagement, all of these arguments point to the need for more captions on social.”
More than that, it is also a best practice to apply captions in order to maximize your reach: “A recent study by Instapage shows that captioned video has more reach, shares, reactions, and click-throughs as well. Specifically, videos with captions had 16% better reach than videos without captions.” Will shared with us before adding: “This is unsurprising because Google indexes captioned content. There are several services out there that automate the attribution of indexable (ie searchable) metadata to video based on the contents of each video. If your video has captions, those captions can be converted into indexed metadata that can be picked up by search engines, and there drive more traffic.”
One should also consider the type of media that captions are applied to and how that shapes your social strategy, “video is still less common than photos on social media, especially because it takes more effort to create” Will says. “The thing is that brands should want to post more video as it dramatically outperforms photo content. Why not ensure that video content, which is so time-intensive to create, has as much impact as possible?”
Subtitling is not so easy to do
Before creating Slate, Eric & Michael were managing social content at the NFL, and this is when they saw firsthand how time consuming it was to create captions for social. First you’d receive the video, then send the video to an in-house video editor or third-party freelancer working on desktop software, who’d then have to painstakingly add captions to video and re-send that to social managers. Forget about quick feedback and revisions! Forget about turning around content at the speed social content needs to be posted‘.
On top of that, not only is it time consuming, it’s hard to achieve a brand-consistent look and feel around the right branded fonts and colors of the text with video. Some social platforms offer in-app captioning, but they’re limited to stock fonts & colors provided. Let alone you wouldn’t want to bring Instagram native fonts and repurpose that content for Snapchat, TikTok, etc
Captioning with Slate
Short-form video is on the rise across social, but captioned video has still to keep up. The processes for applying on brand captions are still too time consuming for social media managers. And that’s why Slate decided to address this specific pain point by integrating an easy and efficient way of captioning audio in seconds.
“We use a third party speech to text integration.” Will told us, before continuing: “after experimenting with several different third-party APIs we noticed that some are better than others at recognizing different languages and distinguishing voice from background audio. The best services are powered by AI models that get more accurate over time. Video that would be impossible to caption two years ago is now being captioned in seconds.”
How does it work? In the Slate app, the user uploads a video, grants permission to have the video be analyzed for captioning, and then simply hit our ‘Caption’ button. The video file will then be analyzed for captions, and captions will then be applied to the video. This generally takes seconds and can be done completely from the phone. Going further, the captions that appear on video can be easily editable - switching between different text colors and fonts, and the words themselves tweaked if needed.’
Converting the audio into a caption is only the first step to a powerful video. Graphic design, production, and timing are all to be considered before posting video on social. For Will, there are a few best practices to make a captioned video stand out and appeal to users.
Make sure the captioned text is legible! This can be done simply by ensuring you have text highlights turned on. That contrast will make the captions super easy to read. Going further, if you have a darker video then adding captions highlighted with a lighter color will make sure captions pop out more. And vice versa, a brighter video will have more effective captions with captions that have a darker highlight to them.
Position your captions! Where are the captions positioned on the video? You wouldn't want captions covered by the native profile overlays on TikTok, Instagram & Snapchat. If you use our Safe Zones feature, you can make sure to place your captions in a place that won’t be covered by the social platform’s profile overlays. Or will you be repurposing this vertical video for a smaller feed post later? Captions positioned at the top or bottom of the vertical video will be cut off on smaller formats!
Make the captions dynamic. Another best practice is to have your captions alternate in color to add some dynamism to your content, switching captioned text styles from one speaker to the next. Or within a speaker’s captioned text, play up a more engaging sound bite (or text bite?) by isolating those words with a different color or font style.
The reasons why the social team should add captions to video content are almost innumerable, as discussed with Will. Nowadays, captions have to be part of any content marketing strategy to drive engagement and awareness. The online landscape is crowded, competitive, and moving at lightning speed. We don’t just need users to slow their scroll, we need them to engage. “Also, be open to trying new things!” does not fail to remind Will. See how captioned content performs on feed, Stories, and short-form video formats. Be mindful of your audience, can you localize your content to the languages they speak? Our captions functionality supports 5 languages (and growing). Inclusivity on social drives incredible loyalty and engagement. All it takes is being aware of what your audiences’ needs and a few taps to create content that’s accessible to a much larger audience.”
If you're thinking of using captions as well as many other features to create branded content for your social media, do not hesitate to get in touch with the Slate team here or with us directly here. Slate will definitely make your life easier and improve retention on social media.
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