INTRODUCTION
According to Digsite, 85% of people who watch social media videos do it without sound. This comes as no surprise as many people check their social media in public settings, such as at work. On LinkedIn, videos autoplay to mute so viewers have to turn it on sound manually.
Adding closed captions to LinkedIn can boost your video’s viewership. Captions are simply written text that is overlaid on a video that represents the spoken part of that video. Here is how to add closed captioning to your LinkedIn videos and its benefits.
HOW TO ADD CLOSED CAPTIONS
Closed captions can be added to videos that are shared from either personal or a LinkedIn page. Before starting, make sure you have an associated SubRip Subtitle (SRT) file attached to the video prior to posting.
To create an SRT, use closed captioning software tools like Rev.com, which offers services like transcription, captions and foreign subtitles, Temi.com and Quicc.com
From your LinkedIn homepage, click on Video in the “start a post” area. Then click the “Edit” icon at the top right of the video box to view the settings. Next, click “select caption” and select the SRT file. From there, be sure to add a description (which includes relevant keywords) and/or hashtags. Then click Post.
CLOSED CAPTIONS INCREASE WATCH TIME & ACCESSIBILITY
Adding captions to your LinkedIn video can help boost engagement, including watch time. A recent study by PLYMedia found that 80 percent of viewers were more likely to watch a video until the end when closed captions were available. Make sure the font is big enough and visuals are bright enough to be seen and recognized immediately by your viewer.
In addition, having closed captions is essential for the population who are deaf or hard of hearing. This not only expands your audience but makes your content more accessible–this includes writing the captions in the language of your target audience (e.g. if non-English speaking).
CAPTIONS HELP BUILD SEO
Closed captions help build your SEO strategy. Since Google and other search engines aren’t able to watch videos, they gain information from the text included in your captions. Use Google AdWords to find relevant keywords. For example, maybe people are searching more for “how to fund a startup” than they are for “raising capital.”
The captions also can be used as an accompanying transcript of the video. Transcripts can help your video rank for multiple relevant keywords and increase search traffic with more than just metadata (title/descriptions associated with content).