More video is being watched without sound than ever before. How can you beat the mute button and make sure your video content reaches the most number of users? Read our how-to guide to make sure your videos can be watched anytime, anywhere.
In their early days social media platforms made it easy to reach followers and fans. But as Facebook and others look at maximizing revenue they are making it more difficult (and costly) to reach consumers, especially with written content. Thankfully, a path to better engagement has emerged as a clear winner: video content.
But not just any video content. Silent video.
Video, the king of content
Do you ever find yourself scrolling down a page mindlessly and thinking to yourself, 'All this text looks the exact same'?
Videos provide some much-needed and easy-to-consume distraction in any social media feed or blog post. They make information easily accessible, they're visually engaging, and often they're fun.
If you're a marketer who drools over concrete data, check out these astonishing statistics:
In 2016, Facebook facilitated nearly 8 billion video plays per day
Customers prefer videos over written text about products by 400%
Marketers who use video grow revenue 49% faster than non-video users
Video is changing the way businesses interact with customers, but a specific kind of video takes the cake when it comes to engagement.
Why silent video is everywhere
Don't you love when a loud video is watched next to you in a public space? Of course you don't, and neither does anyone else.
The smart folks at Facebook have auto-played videos without sound for years. This has inspired media and marketers to create videos that to play without audio. They typically feature captions rather than narration.
And then, in a surprise update that 'literally nobody asked for', Facebook started auto-playing videos with sound in February 2017. Users were shocked, angry, and annoyed at Facebook's intrusion into their private 'sound space'.
The preference is clear. On social media, people would rather watch a silent video than one with audio.
Here are a few scenarios where silent video is the clear choice:
You're in a public space. There's no need to bother everyone around you with mewling kittens. Silent, captioned videos are non-intrusive.
You're supposed to be engaged elsewhere. Supposed to be working on a project at work but watching a movie instead? Captions keep your 'multitasking' a secret.
The content may be offensive or sensitive. Keep up with the news or your favorite (and sometimes NSFW) comedian without accidentally ruffling anyone's feathers.
An impairment limits your hearing. Auditory struggles are more common than most realize. Captions make sure your content is accessible to everyone.
Even when you're just sitting on your couch, do you really want to interrupt the peaceful quiet to watch a video? With silent video as an option, you can make that choice for yourself.
Captioning videos the easy way with transcription
Clear, engaging captions are the key to stellar silent videos. They accomplish a few things:
Captions add more value to the video. Would you rather watch footage of coffee being roasted, or would you rather watch the footage and learn that coffee has over 800 flavor compounds at the same time?
Captions retain the viewer's attention. When we read accompanying captions, our minds fall into a trance of sorts. We keep watching/reading because we want to avoid that unsettling feeling of ending a task (or video) before it's complete.
Captions give viewers a choice. They can choose to watch silently or with audio. You won't lose a single viewer because they don't want to turn up the volume.
Captions easily translate to search engine optimized content. Once you've captioned your video, you can easily add the text to web pages, social media posts, and video descriptions to boost your searchability.
The best part is? The captioning process is extremely simple. Gone are the days where you had to manually type out every word and time them to appear with the video. That process is time-consuming and inefficient.
Thanks to powerful automation technology, you can caption your videos and time the text changes perfectly with just a few clicks. It's quick, effective, and painless.
Optimise your video content
Silent video is not going anywhere. The backlash at Facebook for auto-playing videos with sound is proof of that.
And with video nearing 80% of the world's internet traffic overall, there's very little reasons (if any at all) to create videos for social media that don't have the silent option with captions.
If you want to learn how to automatically caption your videos, reach out to us at support@trint.com.
