1. Accessibility
Accessibility is probably the most obvious and certainly the most important reason to add captions to your videos. Captions and subtitles enable your content to be accessible via additional or interpretive information to those who are deaf or even just hard-of-hearing.
Perhaps you’ve also utilized captions while streaming movies or shows in your living room at home, regardless of your quality of hearing. Either way, logistically, 1-in-6 people have some form of hearing loss, so if your videos aren't captioned, you're entirely inaccessible to a lot of people who might benefit from your content.
2. The Silent Treatment
An example like this best illustrates the second most important reason for captions— Imagine you're sitting at your desk during a slow moment at work, and just as you begin to zone out on Facebook (admit it: we all are guilty of this at one time or another), suddenly a loud video or music blares out from your device drawing the attention of your neighbors. Whoops!
In terms of the data, did you know that over 80% of videos on Facebook are watched without any sound? The numbers might be shocking, but it makes perfect sense when you understand the motivations behind this behavior.
As much as we all like to imagine we have an attentive and captive audience watching our videos, the truth is, we need to give an honest consideration of all the various environments where people might engage with our content. For example: on public transportation, in a library, or even in the bathroom, to name just a few.
This is another reason why adding captions to your video means more viewers since people can follow along silently and discreetly no matter the circumstances around them at the time.
3. Improve your SEO
What the heck does adding captions have to do with Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?! Well… a lot, frankly. Adding captions increases your chances that your videos will come up when people use search engines like Google.
As it turns out, captions aren’t just visual information for humans. Without getting too into the tech behind it, videos with captions can also be “read” (in a sense) by search engines! Woah… As a result, captioned videos end up being ranked higher in searches, which leads to more views and exposure for you and your content.
Additionally, videos with captions tend to have a longer average view time (for reasons mentioned above), which is something that search engines also take into account when ranking results.
This makes perfect sense because if your video is (1) more popular, and (2) people stick around to watch more of it, you will get preference to other comparable videos that might come up in the same search results because your content appears to be more relevant to more people. Win-win!
How to add captions to your videos quickly and easily on Facebook.
Okay, so now that we understand why captions are so important, let’s get into the how:
This process works whether you’re uploading a video for the first time, or revisiting a video you’ve uploaded in the past. Note: To keep this post brief, we’ll assume you have a working knowledge of how to get videos onto the platform.
First, you’ll want to open the video editor for the video to which you want to add captions. If you’re uploading this video for the first time, you’ll automatically start in this pop-up window.
In the image above, did you notice that giant green “RECOMMENDED” prompt in the second-from-the-bottom tab to the right of the video player (We added the red box for clarity)?
See— we aren’t just blowing smoke here. This stuff really works and Facebook knows it!
Just click anywhere in this area (close-up image pictured above) and you’ll open up the subtitles & captions window for your video.
It looks like this:
This window is where you can upload captions you’ve generated outside of Facebook, start from scratch and write them yourself, OR, there’s a really cool feature that allows you to “autogenerate” captions— this is the feature we want to highlight for you.
If you hit the autogenerate button (after confirming the language spoken in your video) it will start going to work generating captions for you. There’s even a little progress bar you can watch while you wait. Maybe take this opportunity to grab a cup of coffee or tea, because…
… this is where a little patience will be needed. The system isn’t perfect, especially if your video is difficult to hear, features someone speaking with an accent, or includes technical jargon, but it will at least give you a good outline and a close approximation of what your captions will be.
Just hit that “Review and Edit” button that replaces the progress bar once it reaches 100% to finesse the captions to your heart’s content!
This will open up the caption editor. In this window you can watch your video in real time, pause it, make corrections, as well as add or delete captions— all right there.
And voilà! As soon as your captions are refined to your satisfaction — be sure to hit the SAVE button to ensure that your corrections take effect. With that, you're good to go.
Don’t hesitate to reach out to us if you have any questions about this process or want to discuss other ways to improve your videos.
Until then,
Fiat Lux!
