Why your social videos need closed captioning

There's a huge debate surrounding the use of sound on social videos. You might’ve heard the research that shows Facebook generates 8 billion video views per day, but did you know that of this number,  nearly 85% are watched without sound? Your carefully scripted video will mean nothing if you're relying on sound to communicate, and there’s little chance your video will capture the market audience that it could. The solution? Use more graphics, subtitles, and closed captioning in your videos.

5 benefits of using closed captions in your social media videos

1. If most videos on Facebook are watched without sound, and yours contains any dialogue, captions are really the only way to communicate your speaker’s message. This also benefits people who are deaf or hard-of-hearing. 

2 - Facebook claims that adding captions to your video can boost view time by 12%. Giving people the option to watch your video with or without sound may indicate a higher level of interest in the content being watched.

3 - Closed captioning removes a huge amount of language barriers. Research shows that captions are a great aid that clarifies video content and speaker accents, ensuring clear communication that is easily understandable by a larger audience.

4 - Giving people the ability to watch your videos in sound-sensitive environments. If someone’s noisy environment captions will convey the speech when the sound is obscured on the other hand it also enables viewers to enjoy videos on mute in quiet environments like a library or office.

5 - It’s easier to understand and scan through derivative content. Transcripts or subtitles help people to scan content and key phrases or topics which aids in sifting through the content to understand the themes and topics of conversation more clearly and accurately.

It’s pretty clear that closed captioning your videos can increase engagement, click-throughs, and leads. Once people click through your video, make sure you are pitching in by giving them the choice to understand and watch your video regardless of the restrictions they might be facing.