4 advantages of using subtitles in your videos

If you make videos for your business, no matter how large or small a part they play, it’s always a good idea to add subtitles and captions, and here are 4 reasons why…

Accessible to deaf and hard of hearing

Obviously, when it comes to your business, you want to include everyone. With 1-in-6 people in the UK deaf or hear of hearing, that’s a large percentage of the population who are excluded from watching a video if it doesn’t have subtitles.

In one study by Facebook, it was found that 41% of videos were basically meaningless without sound. This shows just how important dialogue, music, and voice-overs are in videos. If the viewer is deaf or hard of hearing, then those videos are wasted on them.

Captions allow deaf and hard of hearing people engage with what’s going on, communicating your message, brand, or product to a wider audience.

Subtitles can improve language skills

A simple yet highly effective way to help children build their foundational reading skills is by using closed captions.

Studies have shown time and time again that closed captions can help boost word recognition, phonics, and fluency, no matter what level they are at.

And it’s not just native languages.

For people trying to learn English, subtitles are a very common and cheap way to improve their skills.

People are simply more engaged when they are reading along with what’s happening, no matter what their native language is.

People learn and retain more using subtitles

Viewers are more engaged when they can read along with the dialogue, with research by Facebook showing an additional 12% increase in viewing time when captions are used.

Closed captions also help maintain concentration, especially for viewers with learning difficulties, autism, or attention deficits.

For older students, captioning helps to retain information easier, improving test scores and reading comprehension.

Subtitles improve your SEO

If you make videos for your business and put them online, then subtitles can help you in the eyes of Google.

Subtitles are a way for Google to see what your videos are about, and thus rank you higher in their search results. This is a clever way to add an extra SEO string to your bow, giving you an advantage over competitors.

And of course, the more accessible your video is, the more people will watch it, and the more people who watch, the further your business will reach.

Contact us for all your subtitle needs

If you would like to add subtitles to your videos, then we can help.

We provide both open and closed captions in over 30 document formats, and as a commitment to our high standard, our captioning work is checked for you.

As well as offline captioning services we offer audio description and audio-visual translation services, including:

• Audio transcription / time-coding scripts
  transcribing and time-coding English or foreign audio for reference, voice-over use (with partial time-codes) or subtitle use (with full time-codes). The transcription is provided ready for your translation team or we can produce the translation for you in over 80 languages.
• English and foreign audio description
  either as scriptwriting alone or including scriptwriting and narration.
• BSL Signing
  transcription and adaptation of the script for a signer to use; filming on green screen, video edit and final encoding. The signer can be edited into your video or delivered to you as an h264 .MOV file on an alpha channel (transparent background) for your own use.

To find out more about any of services, including subtitles, please don’t hesitate to contact us.