Increasing Traffic To Your Online Platform With Captions

The numbers are staggering. According to the Hearing Loss Association of America, approximately 48 million Americans (20 percent) report some degree of hearing loss. That’s one out of every five people around you dealing with hearing loss.

Captions and Social Media Engagement

Have you ever considered the major shift in social media usage and how we view posts? Think about yourself, maybe scrolling through your Facebook feed, seeing a video and the audio is automatically muted. Just the convenience of subtitles for hearing individuals is something to be thankful for. (Especially if you’re scrolling at work!) Okay, now think of those with hearing loss and how much of an impact it can have on their everyday life, both on and off social media.

The Value of Captions for Your Business Online

In addition to the convenience and necessity of captions, having transcripts of your videos online can also reap a plethora of marketing benefits. They are helpful for SEO (search engine optimization), multilingual support and viewer engagement. An increasing number of educational businesses and government agencies are reaching out to professional vendors for their captioning needs. As they see the value that captions have for their audiences and as accessibility laws expand beyond these sectors, the use of video captioning will continue to grow.

Those with hearing loss are consumers, too. Meeting the need for those with hearing loss is not only the law but also an opportunity to establish your business’s professional presence by better serving a community that could otherwise be overlooked.

According to a recent article in Ad Week, “Facebook videos are generating more than eight billion views per month, yet videos are the least-posted type of content among marketers.” If videos are truly the approach in user engagement, more companies will have to compete for screen time. Making such campaigns more user-friendly for a broader audience will surely set your marketing and educational efforts apart.

What About Automated Captions?

Establishing this notion seems to be a sure plan, but be forewarned: it is best not to opt for the auto-captioning services that many platforms offer. Although it seems to be a brilliant idea, in theory, they are not nearly as accurate as a real-life captioner would be. (If you’ve ever watched a video with automated captions and you are a hearing individual, you’ve noticed the difference.) Automation needs significant refinement before it can be considered a reliable source for captions. Another important advantage of utilizing a professional captioner is establishing speaker identification. Automated systems cannot yet distinguish the difference between speakers. Live captioners are able to quickly differentiate and quote per person, adding an additional advantage to viewers.

From increasing traffic, driving sales, improving SEO, and the overall inclusion of all audiences, providing accurate captioning is essential.

Get in touch with us to learn more about providing captions for your online platform.

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