4/5/2023
You are excited and proud to see your video with attractive music released. But then, you feel lazy and hesitate to add subtitles to it.
However, you will soon realize this frustrating step brings you a lot of advantages.
According to Digiday, 85% of Facebook video is watched with no sound mode.
Also, about 80% of users find that video’s automatic sound mode is very annoying.
What if all videos are played in public places like in the bathroom, waiting room, lunch dining halls. Do you like it to annoy people around you? Of course no, right?
A Facebook study also states that 76% of video ads require sound to be understood.
But how to make a video content easy to understand? Only subtitle videos can do this.
Let’s explore 4 reasons why you need to add subtitles to videos.
Good videos can help individuals and businesses convert viewers into web visitors, then enhance their chances of becoming new customers.
However, a video’s quality and content are sometimes underestimated, while video is the most effective tool, helping us get higher engagement.
Videos take up 82% of Internet traffic
A Cisco 2020 study found that videos took up 82% of Internet traffic. This number makes marketing professionals think about creating video marketing campaigns that win engagement from both viewers and creators.
Besides creating quality, engaging content for videos, subtitles are an essential factor.
Can you imagine that many of them are played with no sound mode among the millions of videos uploaded every day? So, only subtitles can let your videos reach more viewers.
Sometimes, subtitles even bring better performance than other factors.
Do you know that Facebook videos with subtitles are played 12% longer than those without subtitles?
Video subtitles can increase the viewing time and duration. Thanks to subtitles, you can improve your chances of retaining old customers, growing, and having more new customers.
Subtitles support viewers to hear and see the words spoken in a video at the same time. According to a study conducted by the University of Iowa, watchers are more likely to pay attention when both memory and attentiveness stay active.
According to other statistics from Facebook, only 66% of videos without subtitles are viewed till the end. While subtitle videos account for 91%.
Countless reports are proving that subtitles help to engage more audiences.
In short, adding subtitles to videos is an essential step that individuals and businesses need to do if they want to promote their brand awareness widely.
There’s a practically required component when making video, it’s accessibility.
Video content is not allowed to discriminate against anyone even if they lack accessibility. Therefore, businesses and individuals must bear in mind to create videos impacting multiple senses.
In this case, once again, the subtitles demonstrate its importance. As in the US, according to the John Hopkins Cochlear Center for Hearing and Public Health, there are 38 million Americans over the age of 12 to some extent have hearing problems.
This represents about 14.3% of the entire population of the United States.
Subtitle videos are more accessible
Again, this issue was ignored by many businesses and individuals, and they think subtitles are unnecessary. However, subtitles are an extra feature and a gadget to reach out to the world.
Without subtitles, you might skip millions of viewers.
In the UK, another fact that proves the importance of subtitles is that 7.5 million people prefer to watch subtitle videos, whereas only 1.5 million have hearing problems.
In other words, up to 4 people out of 5 watch videos with subtitles even if they don’t have hearing problems. As a result, subtitles are extremely helpful not only for the hearing impaired.
In addition, subtitles are also an implicit courtesy when we watch videos in public. Subtitles prevent us from disturbing others by noisy music embedded in the video.
Many people admitted that videos without subtitles are more complicated to follow than those with subtitles. This makes subtitles more vital because they help viewers fully enjoy the videos.
Subtitles are also a tool to reach those who are not English native speakers. Although English is the second most popular language globally, many non-native speakers are watching videos on social media platforms such as Youtube or Facebook.
Approximately 60% of YouTube users are non-native speakers. Although many people believe that Youtube mainly uses English, the above number proves the opposite.
Therefore, if your video has no subtitles, you will ignore a large number of YouTube viewers. This is obviously not good for you or your business.
Many video creators and producers don’t even bother to add subtitles to their videos, especially multilingual subtitles. For many individuals or businesses, subtitles may seem like an extra feature that wastes their time, effort, and even money.
If you firmly believe that attitude, you will face the barrier of reducing accessibility to users worldwide.
From a viewer’s perspective, whether it’s a deaf person or someone who doesn’t understand your video language, having to watch videos without subtitles will make them hesitant and less likely to watch your creation.
You must have heard a lot of advice from friends and family that learning foreign languages through movies, or music will strongly improve your level, instead of learning only in textbooks.
Learning by perceiving a certain language sound will help non-native speakers improve their language sensibility.
To test the effect of learning languages by watching subtitle videos, a group of Spanish students with intermediate English proficiency watched a 1-hour TV drama in English, Spanish or non-subtitle version.
Before and after watching the drama, participants took listening and vocabulary tests to check the improvement.
After watching the English subtitle version, participants improved their listening skills significantly more than watching with or without the Spanish subtitles version. Their understanding of plot comprehension is enhanced as well after watching the Spanish subtitle version.
According to this study, subtitle videos help you track and capture partial content. On the other hand, it also improves your language skills, especially your listening and plot comprehension skills.
Learning a new language, you also have the opportunity to learn and experience the whole culture of that country through films, programs, or documentaries.
For example, when you learn Spanish, besides understanding their language, you can explore what you might never know about Spanish culture.
In general, subtitle movies, drama or subtitle videos give you a bunch of benefits you may not have thought of before.
Another equally important reason, also the one mentioned in previous articles, is SEO.
Subtitles improve engagement and increase audience reach, but it can also optimize search engine (SEO) on any platform, especially Youtube.
While improving regular SEO content and SEO videos essentially have the same technique, subtitles will help your videos easily found on the Internet.
Subtitle videos boost SEO
SEO allows Google to detect your subtitle video, increasing your video rankings. Moreover, Google doesn’t recognize non-subtitle videos, which is another sensible reason to add subtitles in your videos.
With subtitles added, SEO is improved, and your videos can reach more audiences, you can rapidly convey your messages. In general, you can have better results than what you expect.
Besides, thanks to good SEO, you can quickly generate revenue based on subtitle videos. The higher the views and shares your Youtube videos have, the more significant revenue you earn.
In contrast, since Google and Youtube cannot find videos without subtitles, the possibility of making revenue from those is relatively weak.
Creating subtitles for videos is not a challenge anymore because Youtube has automatic adding subtitle functions.
However, investing effort and time to make proper subtitles could make your videos stand out from the others because automatic sub doesn’t serve SEO purposes.
Besides bunches of benefits, the immediate advantage of videos with subtitles is content clarification.
Whether your target audience is kids, teenagers, or adults, subtitles benefit all of them.
The U.S. National Library of Medicine also stated that more than 100 studies had shown the benefits of adding subtitles to videos.
Thanks to the subtitles, viewers can significantly improve their understanding and memorizing ability.
Watching subtitle videos helps some students store and remember more information taught in class
As mentioned above, the subtitles also support the hearing impaired. It shows your interest to all audiences, and proves that you are trying to communicate to reach everyone by your creative videos.
Another study from Cielo 24 pointed out that watching subtitle videos helps some students store and remember more information taught in class.
Thus, whether you are a business owner, a content creator or an individual who wants to promote your brand awareness, subtitle videos bring great benefits. Especially if viewers don’t know some words in the videos, or the video music has low quality.
Adding subtitles to a video will increase viewers’ understanding and improve its ability to achieve specific goals. Whether you’re promoting products or services, building brand awareness, or sharing helpful information, subtitles can make your target come true.
Youtube Studio has an integrated automatic subtitles tool, but it’s often inaccurate and lacks proper punctuation.
Follow the guide below to edit subtitles for YouTube videos in a smarter way.
1. Go to Youtube Studio and select the video you want to add subtitles.
2. Go to the middle of the More Options tab; you will see Subtitles and CC for Original Language.
3. On the bubble, you will see English by YouTube, click on the 3 dots next to it, you will see 3 options: Edit on Classic Studio, Download, and Delete.
The easiest way is choosing to edit text directly on Youtube Studio. You can choose Edit on Classic Studio from the dropdown menu.
4. Next, it will direct you to YouTube Studio Subtitles Editor, and you can easily adjust the subtitles for your video.
In this section, you will see all automatic subtitles with timestamps. Click Edit to begin editing subtitles.
5. Next, select different parts of text that Youtube has automatically separated, and then start editing spelling mistakes, punctuation.
6. If you want to edit the subtitle time appearing in the video, adjust the horizontal bar below the video by lengthening or shortening the blur effect to correct the time.
7. Use keyboard shortcuts to view and edit subtitles instead of the mouse.
8. After finishing editing the subtitles, click Publish Edits in the top right corner to save.
After uploading the new subtitles, you can go back to the subtitle menu and choose Download to download the file.srt, which contains all transcripted audio as a text file.
You can use this .srt file to enrich your subtitles in case you choose to upload your video to different platforms, for example, Facebook or Vimeo.
Subtitles are a powerful tool that brings a lot of aids to your videos. Besides focusing on the content, images, and sound, subtitles are another element you need to pay attention to to develop your brand in a sustainable and long-term period.
Or, another way you can appreciate subtitle videos’ importance is to think about how everyone, including you, disabled persons will benefit from this potential resource. As soon as you ask yourself this question, you may find the values you are missing out.
If you see the power of subtitles already. Don’t waste your time with nonsense excuses, let’s get started with our detailed instructions on editing sub on Youtube to make a positive change from today. Or, if you need a stunning subtitling tool to boost up your marketing, look no further than Motionbear. We’ve got your back to help you create excellent videos.
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Our generative AI save you countless hours on subtitling and transcription tasks.