Congratulations on recording your first music video’s content and doing everything you could think of to promote it. You shared it on your socials. You optimized the title and description. And promoting it across various online communities. Yet, results still fall short. After all your effort, you’re just not getting the number of views you were aiming for.
So, where did you go wrong?
Even though excellent video content is critical in climbing the success ladder, there’s one thing you might have missed: adding subtitles!
Subtitles aren’t just for movies and T.V. shows. They’re the secret to any kind of video content you plan to record and share.
But why are subtitles so important? The answer might surprise you!
Here’s a quick look at the seven most essential reasons all videos need subtitles to succeed.
Not Everyone Can Hear the Audio
There are roughly 28 million deaf or hard-of-hearing Americans, and not adding subtitles to your videos means you’ll miss out on the opportunity of engaging with this segment of the audience.
Not Everyone Can Turn the Audio On
Subtitling your videos won’t only help you reach the deaf and hard of hearing community, but it’ll also help you reach audience members that can’t turn their audio on while watching videos.
Did you know that up to 85% of Facebook videos are watched on mute? That’s a considerable segment of the market, and even though those stats only pertain to one specific social network, it’s still not worth risking.
Subtitles Promote Better Comprehension
We all learn and take in information in our own way. Some people learn and comprehend by doing, others do so by watching, and some purely by listening. But unless your audience is purely stimulated by audio, they’re not going to get much from a video without subtitles.
Videos with captions provide your audience with the means to better understand your content, and when you combine the power of video and text, you’ve got a winning recipe.
Not Everyone Speaks Your Language
Great content can transcend language barriers, but only if it’s translated. As a musician, it’s vital for you that people from all across the world watch your videos, but if they can’t understand the language, it’s going to be an uphill battle.
English might be one of the most commonly used languages on the internet, but Mandarin Chinese isn’t far behind. It’s important to always take your target audience’s language preferences into account when creating your videos and their subtitles.
Subtitles Keep Viewers Engaged
A 2009 study by PLYMedia found that 80% of viewers tend to watch a video to the end when subtitles are included, compared to just 66% who will watch a video without subtitles to completion.
80% is a figure you can’t afford to ignore, and if subtitles offer this much of an opportunity to help your videos get more views, you should invest the time and money it takes to get it captioned.
Subtitles Increase Social Reach
Captioned Facebook videos have, on average, a 16% higher reach than those without subtitles. They’re also shared 15% more, have 17% better reactions, and a 26% increase in CTA click through rates. In short? Captioned videos perform better in every measure that matters compared to videos without captions.
It Boosts SEO
The main concern when producing music videos is obviously the quality of your content, but in the back of your mind, SEO is just as important. And subtitles can help give you that boost in search rankings you’re aiming for. In fact, many of the compelling reasons why you should caption your videos also contribute to SEO.
The more time people spend watching your videos, the longer the dwell time, which positively affects your rankings. More social shares also play a role in SEO. And when your videos appeal to a wider audience, it boosts the number of views your videos get and reduces bounce rates.
Captioning Your Music Videos Isn’t Optional: It’s Essential
Investing in captioning and subtitling increases accessibility encourages engagement, and improves your SEO score. There’s really nothing to lose (except the potential to engage with more viewers if you choose to ignore subtitling).
Using a captioning service like Day Translation eliminates the time it might take to painstakingly manually transcribe and sync your recording, and you’ll always end up with the most professional results, regardless of which language or audience you’re targeting.