Each lifestyle blogger knows the feeling. You capture the ideal farmers market morning, a pie coming out of the oven, a sunset over the lake and then the video just sits on your phone, unwatched. It’s usually not about the footage. The truth is, the majority of your audience scrolls with the sound off, so a gorgeous, silent video just skips by.
You lose a huge opportunity to engage your audience when you don’t add captions to your videos. Once you add a few words to your video, the audience that scrolls with the sound off gets to enjoy your clip. Casual videos can turn heads when you caption them!
The Silent Majority Watching Your Videos
You check your phone when you’re waiting, when you’re on the couch next to a sleeping spouse or when you’re in line at the store. With the sound off. Your audience is the same. Uncaptioned videos are silent films and no one is asking for a silent film. Do a quick scroll through your socials and you will see what we mean.
It’s the Captions that get the Story. Nobody watches a video they don’t know. Add some text to your video and the message is land. Captions can actually help you create a long enough video to hold someone's interest.
Adding Captions Without the Headache
Manually typing captions is a drain on your time. Online caption generator listen for you. All you do is upload the file, then review and correct the mistakes. Nine times out of ten, you can skip that part. The tool does a great job at capturing spoken language. Proper names will still need to be corrected. Overall it is a great tool for quick turnaround captions.
It is quicker than making a cup of tea. Review the text once, because even smart tools mishear sometimes. Style the text so it reads at a glance. Big, plain letters beat fancy fonts every time.
What Makes a Good Captioned Clip
Start by using clips that actually include something worth saying. A step in a recipe or a tip to get to your next travel destination are great examples of clips that require narration. Traditionally, sunsets don’t need narration but explaining that to the camera may be a good example to include in a captioned clip. Lead with your main point right away. Users tend to exit a video if the narration doesn’t explain the main point of the clip.
Make clips 30-90 seconds
Only include one topic per video
Face the main light source for the best quality
Cut dead air
Picking Moments Worth Sharing
Not every moment is worth captioning. Great moments to share include that first bite of pie, a great market find, or that great unexpected turn in the road that leads to someplace spectacular. Capturing places is key to a good travel recap video. Recipe videos require even more narration since you can’t slow the video to catch a pinch of that important ingredient. Commentary is great to include since behind the scenes clips require very little action.
Blooper reels are great to share too since laughter is the best language. Filler clips that don’t add any value should be skipped.
Style Tips That Keep Viewers Watching
Next you’ll want to adjust the text to be easily readable. Fancy fonts are cool, but plain large text is easier to read at a quick glance. White text with a thin outline is great because it almost always stands out. Keep it to one short thought per line to avoid eye fatigue.
The goal is to help the viewer understand what you’re saying at the same time you are. A little bit of lag is perfect. Place captions at the bottom of the screen, and above any platform buttons. Test it out on your phone. Before posting, just keep it simple.
Where Captioned Clips Shine
Travel recaps let viewers learn location names. Recipes become demonstrations. Event highlights make people feel included. Let classmates capture your end of the year shenanigans. Plant names on screen make a garden tour twice as enjoyable. Anything can help you sell your stuff. In the future, you will thank yourself.
Conclusion
Your videos are better than a silent scroll. Captions take minutes and improve video performance. The barrier was never your talent, just the missing words. The next video you share whether it be of your market finds or your kids’ birthday dinner could be your breakout video. One great video can outperform 5 silent videos.
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