7 Results You Can Expect After Your Company Adds Subtitles to Video

Are you using video content as part of your overall business strategy? You certainly should be. There are a ton of perks to video, from more qualified leads to improved brand awareness. If you’re not taking advantage of video content, now’s a great time to start.

But don’t just create a video and put it out into the world. There’s even more you can do to maximize the effectiveness of your videos. Check out how your company will benefit!

Great Video Content Garners Awesome Results

We’re in the golden age for video. It’s an incredible way to reach people of all ages, races, beliefs, interests; you name it. And great video content will get you awesome results.

Check this out: video gets 66% more qualified leads per year, and video achieves a 54% increase in brand awareness.

That’s a huge difference. If you’re only using blog posts or social media to reach your audience, you’re missing out on a large number of people.

The best part is that there are so many different ways to produce video content. You could create vlogs, conduct video interviews, offer product demonstrations, tutorials, webinars, live streams, and even video advertising. As long as the content is quality, you’re starting on the right foot.

So, just using video alone will boost your numbers, both regarding overall brand awareness and qualified leads.

But, what if you could get even better results?

Adding Subtitles to Video Will Greatly Improve Your Results

Okay, your video has excellent content, and you’re getting more eyes on your stuff. But don’t take this opportunity to relax – capitalize on it!

If you add subtitles to video, you’re maximizing the reach of your content. For starters, you’ll increase view time by more than 12%. People will watch your videos for a more extended amount of time as they follow along with the subtitles.

Not only that, but your videos will also get more overall views.

Consider that your audience may be consuming your video at a time when turning the sound on would be inappropriate or impractical. They might be on public transportation, on lunch break at a noisy cafe, or at the library without any headphones. If your video has subtitles, users will be able to watch even without sound. This is important for mobile users whenever they are on the go.

There are other benefits of subtitles, too.

Subtitles will increase shares of your content.

It’s possible someone will consume your video and share it with a friend or colleague without ever actually listening to it. Of course, they can only do that if you add subtitles to video online. A silent video with no subtitles is a lot less likely to be shared.

Users will engage more with your content, as well.

When they share it, they might pull a quote from the video to include in an email or social media post. That’s a lot easier to do when it’s written on the screen in subtitles, rather than having to go back and hit the play and rewind button to make sure they’re capturing the quote correctly. You’ll also find more comments on videos with subtitles, and your audience is more likely to reach out with follow-up questions or interest if you’ve captioned your videos.

You’ll discover strong leads in new markets.

When you add subtitles to video, you’re expanding your reach – sometimes beyond what you thought possible. Perhaps one of your leads looks for companies to work with during a morning workout. Music is blaring, and there might even be TV screens on at the gym playing a morning show or sports highlights.

All that competing noise can make it tough to capture someone’s attention if your video features visual and audio content alone. By adding subtitles, you’re offering an engaging, thorough way to grab a viewer’s focus. Your potential lead will tune in intently while they’re on that elliptical, but only if subtitles are present.

You’ll get new customers with new questions.

And those questions can be answered with new content. Think how helpful that is: subtitles are contributing to your content archives. Maybe you’ve been struggling to develop your next video, or you’re not quite sure where to take your upcoming blog post.

We’ve already discussed how subtitles can bring in a new audience. Of course, that includes new customers, and those customers will bring unique perspectives. Their questions and comments can spark exciting, innovative ideas for you and your company. That input can be turned into additional content, whether it features any video or not.

Finally, adding subtitles improves SEO.

You’re boosting the value of your SEO when you include subtitles, particularly on YouTube. Google bought the video platform more than a decade ago and have been working to integrate it into the overarching Google system ever since.

As a result, YouTube videos rank in Google searches for topics and keywords. You’ll see even more SEO success if those videos have subtitles. Think of subtitles as a blog post embedded right within your video. There are more terms people may search for, and more people will discover your content.

Why Not Use a Computer-Generated Subtitle?

Okay, we’ve gone over the benefits of subtitles, and you know they should be an integral part of your videos. With that in mind, you can simply find a service that uses computer-generated closed captions, right? Something like YouTube’s captioning service or a translation program should work just fine, shouldn’t it?

While it may seem practical to use a computer-generated subtitle, the reality is that those subtitles are riddled with flaws. You certainly could use them, but you’re doing yourself a disservice, and here’s why:

Computers Have Problems Understanding Different Accents.

You might think you have the most crystal clear voice imaginable. But what sounds great to you may be more difficult to understand for someone else. Even within the same country, you’ll have regional dialects that can significantly influence comprehension, especially for a computer. Even if that computer can generally digest what’s being said, there may be a particular word or phrase that’s mispronounced in the video, or spoken with a bit of an accent. All of that adds up to confusion for the computer, which hurts the quality of your subtitles.

Background Noise.

In a perfect world, all of your video content would contain no background noise whatsoever. We know that’s not always the case, though. If you’re recording from a live event, there’s bound to be background noise, whether you’re at a basketball game or an industry conference. Even when shooting in your company’s building, there can be other noise that interferes with your video’s content. Jay from the next office over may be on a loud conference call. Office chatter may be featured. Even the air conditioning system could distract a computer-generated subtitling program.

Technical Problems.

In live video settings, you may experience technical glitches. Perhaps your video freezes or your audio receives excessive feedback. While a human would know to refrain from including those captions, a computer won’t. And though it can be comical seeing a computer try to sort out how exactly that horrible screeching sound should be spelled, it’ll create a negative experience for your viewers.

Vocabulary Limitation.

While a computer-generated subtitle may have an expansive vocabulary, there are merely some words it won’t understand. Particularly in the use of slang or regional dialect, a computer may not have the knowledge to accurately add subtitles to video. Instead, you’ll get a word jumble that won’t make any sense and may even contradict the actual message of the speaker.

Talking Speed.

This is a major factor no matter how many people are in the video. Your subject may speak as slowly as Sam Elliott, or they may do an excellent Alvin and the Chipmunks impersonation. The bottom line is that a computer won’t be able to catch every word, and it gets even more complicated if two people are speaking at the same time.

Different Speakers.

Much like the speed factor above, a computer has a hard time keeping up with multiple speakers. It may not recognize when one ends, and another begins, and it can be especially confused by more than one person speaking at once. If your video is a roundtable interview with four or five panelists, you’ll run into a whole world of trouble if you rely on computer-generated subtitles.

Interference From Music.

Remember the issue of background noise? That applies to any music used in your video, too. Whether it’s a song playing at the video’s location or a tune added underneath the existing audio, your soundtrack might trip up a computer. It’ll be so busy rocking out that it may caption some of the song’s words as your video’s audio. Unless you’re creating a music video, relying on a computer for captions is just too risky.

Rev is Your Go-To Video Subtitle Service

A Real Person Will Do the Work, Not a Computer.

All of those issues of computer-generated subtitles above? Not a problem with Rev. You can relax knowing that a real person is listening to your audio, able to decipher things like speed, accents, and background noise.

99%+ Accuracy.

We guarantee high-quality delivery. Say goodbye to hoping a computer catches nuances in people’s speech, and hello to nearly perfect captions.

Your Audio Can Have As Many Speakers As You Wish.

Is it just you rolling solo in your video? Great. Are you interviewing 100 people at once? Best of luck moderating that interview, but cool – we can handle transcribing that, too.

Whether you’re already creating great video content or just getting started, if you add subtitles to video, you’ll be taking your content to new heights. Check out how Rev can help make your subtitles clear and effective with closed captions for reaching your audience.