Has this ever happened to you?

You’ve produced new video content, created a buzz, promoted the living crud out of it and shared it on social media but even optimizing the title and description still didn’t get you the views that you were hoping for.

What went wrong?

One of the biggest challenges facing anyone in marketing is figuring out how to break through the noise to reach your customers.

While great video content is crucial, perhaps there’s something simple you may have missed:

Subtitles.

Captioning your videos can have a HUGE effect on how successful they are. This is true for movies, TV shows, social media videos, training content, and any other kind of video you might record or share.

Why are subtitles so important?

1) Not everyone watching your video can hear it.

2) Subtitles improve comprehension

3) Some people actually prefer watching videos with subtitles even if they don’t have to. (My teenage daughter is like this; I have to turn off the captions on Netflix every time after she watches something. Every. Dang. Time.)

4) Viewers are more engaged. As more people are producing high-quality video content, social networks like Facebook have made it easier to post and share videos on their platforms.

But do you know what’s the most annoying thing about scrolling through your Facebook or Instagram feed? When the air of silence is violently stabbed by the blaring audio from the video you just scrolled over! This is why social platforms have made ‘mute’ the default volume setting for videos that auto-play. As a result, many users are likely to watch your video without actually turning on the audio.

Captioning videos can help guarantee your viewers get the message, even if they don’t actually listen to what you have to say.

Beyond making your videos more accessible, captions keep your content competitive within the social media landscape and can even boost your SEO!

Everything you’d ever want to know about subtitles and eye tracking software can be found here.

http://refractory.unimelb.edu.au/2015/02/07/kruger-szarkowska-krejtz/

 

Did I read that entire article?… um… no (totally skimmed it) but what I CAN affirm is that if I’m awake in bed next to a sleepy spouse, eating lunch in a crowded restaurant, riding the bus, quietly not paying attention in church or a number of other moments where I’d choose silence; a video with subtitles will capture and keep my attention when a non-captioned video would just get lost in the upward scroll of oblivion.

Test it out for yourself.

Take a marketing video you’ve already produce and slap some captions on it. (If you don’t have caption-slapping abilities… Ydraw can do that for ya in a jiffy!)

Then launch that video into social media cyberspace and see what happens when your watchers become readers.

 

Written by: Lesa Thomas