Little Known Ways to Get More Video Views (Psst: Video Captions)

You’ve created a great video that will capture your audience’s attention. Now what? You probably know how to promote it on your website and share it on your social media channels, but do you know the best ways to increase your video views?

One of the best ways is to add a video caption file. There are a variety of benefits to adding video captions, and as simple as they are, video captions have a powerful impact on how successful your videos can be.

Whether you’re creating video content for social media, corporate training purposes, or as an online advertisement, in this post, we’re going to dive into what a video caption file is and highlight 8 little-known ways you can get more video views.

Want captions added directly to your videos?

Rev now offers burned-in captions (open captions). Just check the “burned-in captions” box at checkout and you’ll receive a video with permanent, hard-coded captions added straight to your videos. Also available for foreign language subtitles!

What is a Video Caption File?

Believe it or not, you’ve probably seen captions in videos multiple times without even knowing it. Captions serve the purpose of adding written dialogue to audio events. A video caption file can either translate the audio from one language to another (subtitles) or it can be in the same language that the audio is in (closed captions).

When viewing a video, tv show, or movie that incorporates captions, you’ll see scrolling text appear at the bottom of the screen.

Additionally, the biggest benefit of video captions is that it conveys both dialogue and narration along with all other audio effects that occur in the video. These types of effects can include music, loud crashes, a car honking, or a dog barking. Basically, any noise that plays a vital role in what’s happening on the screen is included in the video caption file.

How Can Video Captions Get You More Views?

Adding captions to your videos will greatly expand your audience into new segments and subtitles can even help your brand grow nationally and globally. Let’s explore more below:

Not Everyone Can Hear Your Videos Audio

One of the most popular reasons why companies add captions to videos is to help aid those who are deaf and are hard of hearing. In fact, video captions are the only way that will allow those individuals to access and understand your videos fully. The World Health Organization states that more than 466 million people in the world have disabling hearing loss. Considering that large audience, we think that investing in video captions is well worth the cost of $1 per video audio minute.

Many Can’t or Don’t Turn on Audio

Another audience segment your videos can capture with captions is those who won’t or can’t turn sound on. Oftentimes, the most convenient time for people to watch videos is in a public place. While headphones can help to hear the audio, not everyone remembers or has them. This is where captions can help. People will still be able to view and understand your videos without even turning the sound on. Think about all the people you can reach who are stuck on a bus or subway, or even those new mom’s nursing a baby to sleep or business people taking a short 10-minute break from work. The number and variety of people you can reach by adding captions to videos is enormous.

It Helps Non-Native Speakers to Understand Your Message

Every language has its intricacies and slang words. For those learning a new language, it can be pretty hard to learn it by just listening, especially if it’s a popular video. By adding in video captions, these learners can see and hear the language. Not only will this help to increase their comprehension but it can even help them to learn the language quicker.

Captions and Subtitles Increase Video Social Reach

We can thank the millennial generation for completely changing the way videos are viewed on social media. While captions aren’t a new concept for tv, they are for digital use, and it’s a strategy that you’ll definitely want to partake in.

Wondering why? Eighty five percent of social media users scroll through their newsfeed with the sound turned off. This means that if you don’t have video captions, a lot of people are skipping over your video simply because the meaning is lost without sound. Appending a video caption sidecar file to your video means you’ll be drawing in more viewers to view your content. Not only can you increase video view time but you can engage with more people than you normally would without captions.

Video Captions Are Important For Your Video SEO

This is one of the most important reasons why you should add captions to your videos. Why? In adding captions, you’re giving Google a ton of information about your video and what it contains. This way it can get properly indexed and will show up appropriately when people search for a question that your video answers.

Having no captions can mean that your video won’t even show up.

How do I Add Captions to my Videos?

That’s easy! You can go to Rev and upload your video file, copy and paste the video URL, or download one from a main video sharing platform such as YouTube or Vimeo. From there the Rev team goes to work. Our team of professionals will work as fast as they can to create an accurate caption file that can be appended to your video. Once we’re done, it’s time for you to receive and review your files. You’ll receive an email with your file, and you can edit your video and publish it virtually anywhere!

Why choose Rev for your video caption needs? That’s another easy question we can answer. By choosing Rev, you’ll receive these benefits:

• Secure and confidential work
• 24/7 availability to work on captioning your videos
• 99% accuracy, 100% guaranteed
• Lowest price ($1 per video audio minute) and fastest turnaround time (24 hours)
• Trusted by 100,000 of companies across a variety of industries

8 Little Known Ways to Get More Video Views

Now that we’ve shared with you the power of video captions, let’s spill some of the best ways to get more video views.

1. Use Video Transcription

In addition to helping with SEO, adding video transcription with the help of Rev can help to create an overall better experience for the end viewer.

Everyone learns differently and adding a transcript can give those viewers the option to read and digest information in a written format as opposed to it just being visual. Transcripts and video caption files also help viewers to easily find your video in online searches.

2. Work on a Great Thumbnail

If a picture is worth a thousand words, your video thumbnail is worth even more! Creating a great thumbnail is actually something that gets overlooked by many video creators. Giving your video thumbnails some extra love means that your video has the chance to stand out from the competition.

How to make your video thumbnail stand out:

• Choose an image that really conveys what your video is about and the value that people will receive from it. Make sure the image is captivating enough to make viewers stop.
• Work on the contrast between the background and foreground. Having a nice contrast with colors that pop on both a mobile device and big screen will draw attention to your video.

3. Use B-Roll in Your Videos

No one really wants to see a talking head for minutes or, spare us, hours on end. Even if the content is interesting, from a visual standpoint, your viewers will quickly lose interest. Adding in b-roll of different but relevant footage will not only help to enhance the value of your video. It’s also the key to video storytelling, which will allow your audience to emotionally connect with your content and become engaged. Companies and videos that have that emotional tie oftentimes see a great increase in video views.

4. Create Keyword Friendly and Descriptive Titles

Research to find frequently searched keywords to incorporate into your video title and help your video show up in search engines. Spend time creating a list of different ideas, words, and synonyms to find the right title that will draw viewers in.

For example, for this post, we were targeting people looking for posts about how and why to add video captions. In finding that out, we were able to come up with a friendly and click-worthy headline of: 8 Little Known Ways to Get More Video Views (Psst: Video Captions)

If you still aren’t sure about your title, there are free headline analyzer tools that offer advice on if your title is too weak, lacks emotion, or needs more power words.

5. Hook Your Viewer in the First 15 Seconds of Your Videos

A person clicks on your video because something about your title, description, and/or thumbnail was compelling to them. Now that they’ve taken the first step in clicking on your video, it’s your job to make them stay. You can do this by making sure the value, story, and expectations are clearly stated within the first 15 seconds. While you might have some people willing to watch your video minutes into it before they get the value, many of your subscribers and non-subscribers who don’t really know who you are will leave right away if they don’t see the value presented early on in the video.

6. Deliver Awesome Content to Keep The Viewer Engaged

Create a video with an effective introduction and content geared toward your audience’s interests. Guide them with clear examples and knowledge, and you’re well on your way to designing an effective video that will keep your audience coming back for more.

Taking the time to hash out the details to make sure you include time to source a video caption file before publishing will allow you to create awesome content that keeps the viewer engaged.

7. Write a Detailed Video Description

Similar to creating keyword friendly and descriptive titles, the same applies to your video description. Acting as a summary of your video, your description should include keywords so you show up in searches, have a value proposition for your audience, and, lastly, it should convince someone to click on your video to watch it entirety.

8. Create Playlists to Keep People Watching Your Videos

YouTube and other popular video sharing platforms allow account holders to create multiple playlists. Why would you want to create one? Playlists easily allow viewers to continue watching your videos. Plus, without a playlist, YouTube could recommend a video from a different user to play next thus allowing you to lose a viewer.

Additionally, playlists will allow you to organize your video content to however you see fit. Whether that’s by topic, most popular videos, etc, playlists, in a way, allow you to craft your own tv channel. You can create a nice flow that allows viewers to seamlessly go from video to video, and you can capture them for hours instead of just minutes.

The Final Word on Video Caption Files

Of course, this is just the beginning of all the great benefits you can see by simply adding video captions to your files. What are you waiting for? Boost your engagement with video caption services from Rev today. We know that you won’t be disappointed.