Have you ever thought about the actual impact of video content nowadays? Have you noticed the revolution? You might be one of the many people born into a world where video content is the number one prioritised form of content on the internet.

When it comes to making good videos, the competition has grown drastically over the last decade. Videos are easy to share, not only with people geographically close to you, but with people all over the world, and therefore videos are one of the most powerful tools for businesses in many fields.

Individuals are putting a lot of work and effort into optimising their videos, and subtitles have become one very important ingredient in achieving high profile videos.

Why adding subtitles to your video is important.

Did you know that most videos are watched with the audio volume reduced or with the audio completely turned off? – As much as 85% of videos on Facebook are watched on mute, to keep discrete or to avoid disturbing people around us. Meaning everything said in the video might not be heard at all, and you risk that viewers simply don’t understand the video and, most likely, don’t watch it until the end.

This makes subtitles, not only a big advantage, but furthermore a necessity for marketing videos. Subtitles are necessary in order to make the video stand out, and to clarify the content of the video, creating better odds of more viewers and assisting viewer engagement rate – a measure of how actively involved with the content the audience is, such as likes and comments. All in all making the video more meaningful – even with the audio turned off.

There are different categories of subtitles for different purposes, but overall, subtitles are the written representation of the spoken words in a video. Originally subtitles were used for silent movies in the 1900s to add context to the clips of motion taking place on the screen.

When it became possible to make movies with audio, the purpose of the subtitles changed towards assisting viewers to better understand what was going on and helping those who were hard of hearing with understanding the movie.

Subtitles make your videos inclusive

Today, 466 million people worldwide have hearing difficulties – which is about one in 20 people. This is expected to increase to 700 million people by the year 2050. Furthermore around 2.5 billion people are experiencing some percentage of hearing loss.

That is why subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing (SDH subtitles) are one of the three main types of subtitles used today. In addition to rendering the spoken words into text, SDH subtitles include other audible details such as someone knocking on the door or birds singing, to give a better understanding and feeling of what is going on in the movie. The other two types of subtitles are Open Caption Subtitling and Closed Caption Subtitling.

Open Caption means that the subtitles are burned into the video and therefore are always there.

Closed Captions, which are the most common type of subtitles today, refers to the fact that the subtitles can be turned on and off – giving the viewer the option to watch the video with or without subtitles. Often viewers are also given multiple languages to choose between. Closed Caption Subtitling is what you can see on for example streaming services such as Netflix and BBC iPlayer and also optional on some YouTube videos.

Subtitles improve your video Engagement metrics

When talking about the overall performance of a video, it has been proven that video content with subtitles do much better than videos without subtitles. Subtitling videos improve comprehension of, attention to and memory of a video.

No wonder why you might say, when as mentioned above most people watch videos with audio turned off, but even with the audio on it improves all the above. Furthermore, with online social media platforms bringing together the whole world, the videos we watch are often not in our native language, creating an even bigger need for subtitles and translation.

How to add subtitles to your video automatically

Typing subtitles manually is a very time consuming task, and hiring a professional to do it is often very expensive. This is why using an automatic subtitle generator tool is a revolutionary solution within the world of video editing. The selection of various subtitling tools are growing every day, but not all of them are worth your time. In this example we will explain to you how to get accurate subtitles in over 37 different languages in just a few simple steps using an AI powered subtitle generator – Nova A.I.

Follow these simple steps to auto generate subtitles for your video:

1. Upload your video to the Nova A.I. video editing platform by clicking the “Create Project” button and upload your video from your library or a link/url.
2. When the video is uploaded, you go into the subtitle tab and choose “Auto subtitles”. Here you ask the A.I. to auto generate subtitles for you. You can either choose the video language yourself, or let the program auto detect the language for you.
3. The software now generates the subtitles. This will take a few minutes depending on the length of your video.
4. If you wish to translate the subtitles into another language, you go into the translate tab, select the language you want to translate to and then click translate. The A.I. then auto translates your original subtitles and when ready, just go back into the subtitle tab, where you can see the translation and edit any of the text if needed.
5. When you are satisfied with your subtitles, you can imprint them into your video by clicking “Export” and selecting “Add Subtitles”. Alternatively you can simply download SRT / VTT / TXT files for further use.

This doesn’t sound so hard does it?

A concern when using AI software to auto generate subtitles could be the accuracy of converting speech to text. What if the AI mishears everything and just spits out something completely unintelligible? Most AI software nowadays are quite advanced, with this particular function offering up to 98% accuracy. Most software providers also offer free versions of their software, so you can try it out to see if it works for you before committing to a paid plan (we highly recommend finding the providers with free versions to not waste money on anything that doesn’t work for you!).

Grab your audiences’ attention by being creative

If you think the subtitle font style is chosen randomly, think again! Fonts have a message and a meaning – just like the style of your clothes. Aesthetics play a big role in the performance of your video. Styling your subtitle font is an excellent way to go one step further – improving the overall visuals of your video.

Once subtitles are created on Nova A.I., you can edit their style and look. You can change the font, you can change the style and size, and you can change the colour and background of your subtitles. You can also edit individual subtitle cards, words, letters and numbers.

Whether you are looking for a clean and simple look or for a more artistic vibe, your subtitles have to be easy to read! This means that you have to consider typeface, size, contrast to the background, spacing between words and lines etc. Keep in mind that when it comes to subtitles – clarity is key! 

A few extra tips:

• To save time and resources, use automatic subtitling software.
• Use a large and easy to read font size, preferably point size 22.
• Position your subtitles at the bottom of the screen to avoid overlapping with other texts/captions or pictures on the screen.
• Don’t make your subtitles too long. Keep it within 42 characters, equivalent to 6-7 words per line.
• If posting the video on YouTube or on your own website, consider uploading the entire video transcript in the video description. This will help with the video’s SEO.
• Remember that subtitling is not the same as transcribing, as a transcript is everything being said, whereas the subtitles often must be abbreviated/shortened slightly to make sure they are readable. This is also due to the fact that people tend to speak faster than they read.
• Try to break the subtitle line where there would naturally be a sentence break.
• For accuracy of your subtitles avoid using auto captions or subtitles like the ones on Youtube or Instagram. These will often have unnatural line breaks and mistakes that will not be in favour of your video.

Reach worldwide audiences with multiple language subtitles

Translating subtitles is another useful and often needed feature when video-editing in a global world. Translation gives viewers worldwide the opportunity to engage with your video, compared to just your local audience. Consequently, giving everyone the opportunity to expand their audience internationally.

There really is no video where subtitles cannot be useful. The list is long; Educational videos, promotional videos, movies, TV shows, YouTube and Instagram shorts or reels – all of them will benefit from having subtitles.

Regardless of whether your goal is to engage better with your target audience to build a loyal community, get through to new audiences or to gain higher search engine rankings, adding subtitles to your video can help you to accomplish higher standards.