Adding Closed Captions to Videos

Few important statistics to consider:

85% of all Facebook Videos are watched with the sound off.

39% of consumers are more likely to finish videos with subtitles.

Over 9 million of the UK population and 28 Million of the US population are deaf or hard of hearing. That’s a LOT of potential customers.

If you’re not already adding subtitles to your social videos, you should be. With the power of video as a medium adding closed captions can have a significant impact on both the number of viewers but also people taking onboard your content.

Fortunately, it’s quite easy to subtitle a video. There are several different ways to do it, but perhaps the easiest is to use the handy tools at Rev.com.

Beyond manually adding captions which is a long and arduous task Rev.com provide you with a service to transcribe (Turn audio into text), add captions and some further services for foreign subtitling and translation.

Today the focus is on adding captions to your videos.

Step 1.

Register and create an account with Rev.com HERE

This link gives you a credit which will provide you with 10 minutes of free captions so take your best performing social vids, throw some captions on them and re-purpose them or if you have introductions to your programs on your sites do those. The last thing you want is a lead reaching your website but in a position that they can\’t listen to what you\’re saying right.

Create or select the video you wish to caption and upload by clicking \’Place New Order\’ and select ‘Captions’.

You can upload from your computer a web address or authorise Rev to pull your vids directly from your YouTube or Vimeo accounts.

Once uploaded you\’ll get a summary of the price; it\’s charged per minute, so it\’s pretty simple.

Step 2.

Once uploaded the Rev.com team get to work and depending on the upload method they will send you the file in the relevant format (This can be changed later should you need it at no extra cost). You\’ll get an email to confirm they\’ve received it.

The accuracy promised is 99% or better for both the text and timing and turnaround is 24 hours or less for videos under 30 minutes. All caption files meeting FCC, Section 508 and ADA compliance.

Once completed they will send you your uploaded file via email. If you uploaded via Vimeo or Youtube, they do the legwork for you and add the video captions for you. You can still edit them should you need too.

Step 3.

When you receive your completed file you can download, view and edit or share it with your team should you need too.

We would always advise going through the file to check that it meets what you want. You can change the formality of it and if you\’ve got an accent check that words are being converted correctly.

It\’s a simple editing process so don\’t panic.

Step 4.

Once you\’re entirely happy, it again gives you the option to re-upload to your channels or download it.

If you intend using on Facebook follow the guide in step 6. Unlike Facebook, Instagram does not yet allow captions to be uploaded as a separate sidecar file to videos within the app. Instead, users must burn captions into a video before they upload the content.

This can be done using Adobe Premiere Pro, and this video HERE explains this pretty nicely.

Alternatively, you can use a third party app such as Handbrake. Now, this can be a little glitchy but be sure to double check your vids before you upload them.

Download Handbrake HERE

Step 5.

Burning Subtitles in using Handbrake.

Select the video you want to add subtitles to by clicking on \’Open source\’.

Once uploaded select the \’Subtitles\’ tab and \’Add external SRT.’

Just click the \’Burned In\’ check box, and this will do what it says and burn the subtitles into the video file itself.

Once downloaded you\’re good to go.

Remember that for Instagram your aspect ratio should be 1:1 on all videos and format should be MP4. Minimum pixel size 600×600 and maximum 1080 x 1080.

Step 6.

Adding captions on Facebook.

To add captions to your video:

Click Photo/Video at the top of your timeline or News Feed.

Choose a video from your computer, then click Post.

Facebook will notify you when your video is ready to view.

Click the notification or the grey date and time at the top of the post on your News Feed or timeline.

Click at the bottom and select Edit Video.

Click Choose File below Upload SRT files and select a .srt file from your computer.

Click Save.

Simple.