A slightly different post for me from my previous blogs. This time, a “Vlog”
After my previous videos that I’ve posted on LinkedIn, I started to think about the captions I was using and thought it might be an idea to talk about these and offer my thoughts.
The video is below and below this is a transcript of the narration if you prefer to read rather than watch.
Introduction
There’s no doubt that video plays a vital role in any business’s communication strategy. Search engines love it, social media channels love, consumers love it.
The actual moving image element of video is only one part though. A great video needs good sound, and it also needs good subtitles or captions.
Traditionally, captions have been used to increase accessibility and inclusion as approximately 5% of the populations have some form of hearing impairment. Things have moved on since then though.
Stats show that around 85% of Facebook videos are watched without sound and I guess that the same is true of LinkedIn, where the default viewing mode is with sound turned off.
It’s also been suggested that captions, improve understanding and increase retention of information.
They are also great for SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and bots can index the captions and help with keywords.
Caption Styles - static or animated.
Firstly, there are the classic static captions, just like those that are on screen right now. A static block of text that appear and disappear as the narration moves along.
I tend to use this type of caption as I can create them in my video editing program as I edit videos and can have full creative control over their appearance, using any font that’s available on my PC, or any colour, so can match my own branding.
I can either embed the captions in the video itself, or create a sidecar file that sits alongside the video allowing captions to be turned on or off as the viewer decides.
Most video hosting solutions such as You Tube, LinkedIn etc, also offer and auto transcribing service that creates these captions after a video is uploaded.
to me, the main advantage of this type of caption is that they enhance the content of the video and don’t distract from it as some of the animated captions that I’ll talk about next might do.
They can, however, appear monotonous, and might not match the energy of a short form video or reel.
So, what about animated captions like these. Often appearing one word at a time and with highlighting on key words.
I tend to think that rather than being an enhancement to a video, this style of caption becomes part of the video itself. They’re great for short form, dynamic content, that demands the viewer’s attention. They are great for grabbing attention in the first few seconds.
For me, they add an extra step in my editing process. I use a PC based editing system (adobe Premiere Pro) and once I’ve edited a video , I need to transfer it into an external program to add this style of caption. I use Adobe Express, but I guess Canva and similar can do the same.
I find this type of program tend to steer you in the direction of using one of their in-built templates and don’t offer the maximum control of the caption’s appearance.
I’m also not a fan of this type of caption as I often find them distracting and hard to view after even quite a short period. I’ve heard it said before that the best style of video editing is one where the viewer doesn’t notice the edit and this I certainly not the case with animated captions.
I’ve also got concerns over their accessibility. Not only do viewers with hearing impairment find them difficult to read, they are also difficult to read for viewers with visual or some type of cognitive impairments.
To conclude
So in the end, what’s best and that’s a choice that’s entirely up to the creator to make that decision based on personal preference, the type of content and, I guess, the intended audience.
Whatever you do though, don’t view them as an afterthought and something to be tagged on to a video because you must. View them as a core strategy for enhancing your audience experience.
As most of my videos are relatively long, I think I’ll be sticking to static captions, but where the content dictates that animated might be better, then who knows.
If you’re using captions on a regular basis, what do you think……