Videos create awareness and motivate target audiences into action. While in the past, only large companies with generous budgets could produce promotional videos, today you don’t need a big budget to produce a high-quality video. Small and medium businesses, even individuals, can make themselves known with videos on their sites, at exhibitions, and, of course, on social media.
Open or Closed Captions?
From a marketing perspective, open captions embedded in the body of a video on Facebook are more effective than closed captions (SRT file) because Facebook doesn’t activate captions automatically, if they’re closed, they won’t help capture the attention of a viewer forced to scroll through a soundless feed. In contrast, closed captions enhance and add value to YouTube videos, since they contain key words that can be picked up and prove useful for SEO activity. So if you’re already adding subtitles, they should be the right kind, perfectly cued and smartly located. In order to avoid losing something in translation or making embarrassing language or cultural blunders, you’re going to need them well-designed and translated perfectly, and done professionally by native speakers of the target language, which NG provides.
But foreign exposure isn’t the only benefit. Today, 65% of videos on Facebook are viewed on mobile devices, which means that videos can be viewed anywhere, from within the hushed halls of a library to the rush hour din on a train. Without earphones in these situations or for hearing-impaired audiences, there is no way to hear the audio. But if the video has subtitles throughout, anyone whose hearing is limited for any reason can still be engaged in the content from beginning to end, even without audio.
Facebook Video Subtitles
Subtitles for videos on Facebook are a must! Why? Because when a user scrolls down their feed, Facebook automatically silences audio on videos. But for a video to have full impact, go viral and enjoy off-the-chart shares, it needs to draw the eye, stop users in their tracks and get them to push the sound-on button. Here, subtitles provide a competitive edge that you can’t just dismiss with the wave (or scroll) of a hand. They can prove a key factor in engaging interest, which makes all the difference.
