Video is a great marketing tool and you’ve put a lot of work into creating amazing videos, but you may be missing out on your full audience. Captioning videos can have a big effect on how successful they are. This is true for all types of video from TV shows to social media videos and anything in between.
It is no longer viable NOT to create captioned content. People all over the world engage constantly with content and they have different needs and ways of accessing video content. By using captions, you can reach everyone and that’s not the only benefit.
Why are captions so important? You might be surprised.
Not everyone can hear your audio
More than 28 million adults in the US are deaf or hearing impaired and over 5% of the world’s population have significant hearing loss. This is a huge audience you won’t reach if your videos are not captioned.
Captions will support your audience that are deaf or hearing impaired to follow your content. Your captions should be detailed and accurate.
Many people don’t or can’t turn on audio
Did you know that over 85% of Facebook videos are watched on mute? And that’s only a single social network.
There are many reasons people disable their audio. They may be at work or a public place. They may be listening to their favorite playlist and don’t want to pause it. So even if your target audience is likely to turn on sound, there will still be numerous people who don’t.
Captions improve comprehension
People have many ways of learning. Some get more out of doing, while others by watching or listening. If your viewers aren’t visual learners, they might not get much out of your video content.
People who learn best through reading will get more out of your videos if they have captions. The combination of video and text is strong, and appeals to more people than just video.
Captions make it easier to catch and keep your audience’s attention. Videos with captions have been proven to have longer viewing times.
Viewers are more engaged
A study from 2009 found that 80% more people watched a video to completion when captions were included. Video without captions were watched to 66% completion vs. 91% with subtitles on average.
Captions increase social reach
Captions make a huge difference in how people see, react to, and engage with your videos. Videos with captions on Facebook usually have a higher reach and perform better in every measure that matters.
Captions improve SEO
Your main concern should always be the quality of your content, but you may be thinking, “What about SEO?”. Video captions can give you a boost in rankings if utilized correctly.
If people spend more time watching your videos on your website, you’ll have increased dwell time, which can positively affect your rankings. Appealing to more people helps boost visits and reduce bounce rates.
Captions themselves can even help increase SEO because Google indexes captions you’ve manually added to videos (sorry, automatically generated captions like those from YouTube don’t get indexed).
Captioning your videos is worth the time and effort
While caption your videos may take a little bit of effort and time, we’ve seen that adding subtitles increases accessibility, encourages engagement, and can even improve your search rankings.
Recently, commercial businesses have become targets of accessibility lawsuits. By adding captions to videos, you are one step closer to avoiding legal issues.
There’s really nothing to lose by captioning your videos and you’ll open yourself up to a larger audience. So what are you waiting for? Add those captions!