Category: Video Transcription

Why Captions are Critical for YouTube [Statistics]

Allan CaegLeave a comment
Why Captions Matter to YouTube Creators [Statistics]

You continuously invest in your YouTube channel. You produce great content, invest in distribution, work on SEO, and more. How else might you optimize your channel?

Through statistics, we’ll explore what your YouTube reach looks like. Get a general sense of key YouTube data points, creator statistics, impact of accessibility, and more. We’ll expound on the results that you’d expect if you religiously add captions to your YouTube videos.

Adding captions to a YouTube video provides SEO advantages and increases watch time, as well as boosts engagement and accessibility to a bigger audience. So, the question remains. Why don’t more YouTube creators caption their content?

YouTube Key Data Points Creators Should Know

Although Google has never disclosed the total number of videos hosted on the global network, we know that it’s changed the way we find, consume, and share information.

Youtube attracts a major chunk of internet users. (Up to ⅓ of internet users go on YouTube.) After all, YouTube is the 2nd largest search engine.

With over 50% of YouTube views come from mobile devices, you’ve probably also noticed that half of your YouTube views come from a mobile device. Have you optimized your video content for this mobile audience?

What YouTubers Are Doing

Currently, there are 50 million creators and over 5 billion videos shared on Youtube.

With the astounding number of YouTube creators uploading content, it’s amazing how many of their videos are now being captioned.

Every minute, 400 hours of video are uploaded, and a whopping 1 billion videos now include captions.

Adding captions is a move towards accessibility, as well as a smart business move. Captions help attract a wider community, increase watch time and shares, and boosts your ranking. See how repurposing content can also boost your channel.

Why Accessibility Matters

It’s time to set a universal standard for accessibility. How many people have visited your channel and left without complaining because of its inaccessibility?

Invest in video captions to reach that sizeable audience. Captions are essential to ensuring that your videos are accessible to the wider public.

Source: uscreen

Although more YouTube creators are placing effort into creating more accessible content, many are still turning a blind eye, too.

How People Are Watching YouTube Videos

YouTube captions benefit more than those who need them for accessibility.

Of the 7.5 million people in the UK who use closed captions, only 1.5 million were deaf or hard of hearing. This means that viewers use closed captions for reasons other than difficulty hearing.

Turning the sound on isn’t always a possibility. Others, prefer to watch without sound. Captions can help capture this audience segment who watch without sound. In fact, 85 percent of social videos are watched with the sound off.

Over 1 billion hours of YouTube videos are being watched per day, more than Netflix and Facebook video combined. With 500 million of those YouTube views on mobile devices, more YouTube videos can be enjoyed in various settings.

Conveniently generate text to promote and enhance your videos (with Scribie’s native YouTube integration). Get captions for your YouTube video now!

Your viewers may be consuming your content while taking a quick break in the office, out commuting in an environment with heavy background noise, or simply at home beside their sleeping baby.

People are also watching videos longer. The average viewing Session is 40 minutes, which is up 50% year-over-year. However, 20% of YouTube users will leave a video within the first 10 seconds if it hasn’t hooked them in.

The Impact of Captions on Your YouTube Channel

How do the statistics of videos with captions compare to video content without subtitles?

When it comes to watch time, subtitled videos increase view time by more than 12% and are watched an average 91% to completion. In comparison, videos without subtitles are only watched 66% to completion. When subtitles are included, 80% more people watch videos to completion.

Source: uscreen

In terms of engagement, subtitles also increase social reach and elicit better responses. They boost video shares by 15%. There are also 17% better reactions and 26% more call-to-action click-throughs.

Captions increase engagement and engagement ratio is a key ranking factor for YouTube videos.

In terms of rankings, subtitles also boost your SEO and position in search results or as a suggested video.

YouTuber Leron Amin shares that:

Adding captions to my YouTube video added an additional 1,046 words and 393 indexable search terms. Best of all, my target keyword density increased by 68 terms (Green), and my keyword diversity increased by 12 terms (orange).

Captions also improve comprehension. Subtitles were regarded as “generally very effective in making programmes understood”. Up to 7 in 10 YouTube viewers use the platform for help with their work, studies, or hobbies. This helps viewers absorb your video content’s message better.

Earnings also increase. Adding captions could lead to a 7.32% increase in views. This translates into an increase in earnings of $890.93, from $12.171.29 to $13,062.22.

Over to You

There are plenty of ways you can add captions to your YouTube videos, whether manually or through YouTube’s automatic captions.

Take note: YouTube’s automatic (CC) captions do not get indexed, which is another reason why it is critical to add your own.

According to former YouTube product manager Bob Ellis, “We don’t [index] the automatic captions today. I hope that we will down the road, but it’s a trade-off with the quality. If you upload captions yourself to any YouTube video, we do index that. That is searched.”

Unfortunately, YouTube’s automatic captions are also often filled with numerous errors.

For fast, easy, and accurate captions, Scribie offers transcription services with integrated features that directly upload your captions to YouTube.

Boost your YouTube channel through captions and transcripts. Import your YouTube video now to add captions.

How to Get More Youtube Views by Maximizing Your Existing Videos

Allan CaegLeave a comment
How to Get More Youtube Views by Maximizing Your Existing Videos

As a YouTube creator, you want more subscribers, watch time, views, and clicks to your website.

Ultimately, your success on YouTube either helps you generate ad revenue or promote your brand (whether you’re selling bags, cosmetics, or business tools). Given your goals, how do you grow your YT channel in 2019 and beyond?

I’ll discuss actionable steps and YouTube insider tricks that can help instantly boost your view count.

Discover how you can promote your videos on different channels, repurpose content, and why getting transcripts of your videos are a Youtuber’s secret weapon.

The Value of Text

You trust written content. After all, despite Google’s speech recognition powers, SEO still relies on the written word.

As a result, you strive to write and remix your video content into metadata (title, description, tags, etc)… or you just completely miss out on these optimization and distribution opportunities.

Because you’ve invested so much in producing your videos, you want to make sure that they’re found! If they fall on deaf ears, that ultimately hurts your mission and bottom line.

At the moment, you could be working on YouTube on your own or occasionally getting help. In this article, I’ll expound on the kind of help that you can get from professionals who specialize in areas that you would rather (and should) delegate.

Let Scribie’s professionals do the work. Order transcripts of your YouTube videos or upload subtitles to your videos.

What YouTube Looks like in 2019

We know we’re preaching to the choir. You’ve been publishing regularly (perhaps for more than a year now). In any case, let’s revisit the value of YouTube and what the landscape looks like. These facts, trends, and statistics enable us to review your opportunities.

You might know that YouTube is the 2nd(!) most popular search engine. Coincidentally, did you also know that YouTube is the 2nd most popular website on earth (at the time of writing)?

Given its influence, the leading video platform happens to be a lucrative income source (directly or indirectly). How much can YouTubers make? Typically composed of small teams or solo creators, top YouTubers are worth between $10M to $20M. Looking at the other side of the spectrum, businesses like Adobe and Cisco depend on YouTube as a marketing channel.

In other words, YouTube isn’t going down. You’re investing in the right place so you better double down.

How Transcription Services Can Change Your YouTube Game

As mentioned before, you can’t ignore the value of text. As Youtubers, you’ll still need to input text, whether as video captions, in your description and tags, or even when sharing videos on your social accounts.

A transcript of your YouTube video allows you to repurpose content. Why is repurposing content so magical?

First of all, you save time. You get to promote more even when creating less.

According to Buffer, you can repurpose the content in your video to get an SEO boost, reach more audiences, gain authority, and reinforce your message.

All The Ways You Can Repurpose Your YT Video

Through a transcription service that will turn your recordings into text, like Scribie, you can repurpose your video content in a multitude of ways. Awesome, yes?

Adding the (tiresome but essential) metadata like tags and descriptions to your YouTube video becomes easier.

This also lets you distribute your content to a multitude of channels. Use the text version of your video recording to create:

  • new blog posts and articles,
  • a presentation,
  • social media posts,
  • Quora answers,
  • emails,
  • an ebook, and more!

You can also use the text to add subtitles/captions to your videos and become more accessible to a wider audience, as well as boost watch time and your viewer’s experience.

Beef Up YouTube Video Descriptions

Optimizing the metadata or descriptions in your YouTube videos increase the chances of you being found online. Add the right keywords, including LSI keywords, and tags to help your SEO and to rank higher on search results. (LSI keywords are keywords related to your main keyword.)

Here’s how: Plug your transcript into a word cloud (like this) to discover keywords and tags you can use for YouTube SEO.

Check out this interview by Video Influencers which nicely sums up what I’ve been talking about.

Youtuber Daniel suggests these three YouTube hacks to skyrocket your views.

1. LSI Keywords

Besides using your main keywords in your title and such, use LSI keywords in your description. LSI keywords are additional bits of information that relate to your actual content or keyword topic.

For example, if your main keyword is “transcription services”, LSI keywords can include “transcription software”, “human transcription services”, “best transcription services”, etc.

2. Share Function on YouTube

Source: Video Influencers

Don’t stick to one platform.

YouTube is competitive. You’ll need to promote, be social, and push your content out on as many channels and platforms to get the most eyeballs.

Create accounts based on the various platforms available on YouTube’s Share function, and share your video on all of these as it goes live. Use your transcript to create captions or blog posts for sharing. Cherry pick sentences from the transcript to turn into social posts. Turn the transcript into draft points for your blog post.

YouTube loves the backlinking, helping with your views and ranking. Plus, your building communities and exposing more to your content.

3. Suggested Videos

You may want to rank on the first page, but it’s also all about the suggested videos sidebar right now. To get on that sidebar, find the top results for your main keyword on YouTube, get their channel names, and use them as the last two tags of your video. This signals YouTube that your content is similar to theirs.

Cool hacks, right?

How to Upload Your Captions Directly to YouTube

Adding subtitles or captions to your YouTube videos help more viewers enjoy your content. This ultimately boosts watch time and engagement.

With captions, your audience can watch your videos on the bus, in a busy cafe, or wherever they are that may not be as conducive to YouTube watching. It also opens up your content to a more global audience.

Through Scribie, you can directly upload captions to your YouTube video in a few steps:

  1. Add your YouTube URL to import your video on Scribie.
  2. Verify and hit Order Transcript.
  3. Once the transcribed files are ready, click on the “Save to YouTube” button next to the other save options.
  4. Enter the YouTube URL of the video in the pop-up.
  5. Authorize Scribie to upload the captions to your channel.

That’s it! Your captions will then be added to the video on Youtube.

See more detailed instructions and screenshots of the step-by-step process of adding subtitles using Scribie.

Over to You

Start turning your YouTube videos intro transcripts and make it a habit.

You don’t have to do it yourself. Scribie can be your transcription partner for text versions of your video content and for adding captions to your YouTube videos.

After investing in creating a transcript, fuel the discipline of repurposing, promoting your content, and implementing SEO.

Ready to try Scribie? Order a transcript or add captions to your YouTube videos today!

A Step-by-Step Guide: How to Write a Transcript Fast

Allan CaegLeave a comment
A Step-by-Step Guide: How to Write a Transcript Fast

So, you’re supposed to transcribe an audio or video file.

Your work may need you to do a steady stream of transcriptions, or you’ve never transcribed a word in your life.

Best practices and guidelines ensure that transcripts adhere to industry standards. How do you keep your transcripts high quality with minimal effort? It helps to establish a process for things to stay organized and smooth.

If you happen to be a seasoned transcriber, there may be transcription tips and tricks that you haven’t considered before. Can you improve your current transcription process?

We’ve created this checklist covering all the essential bases to optimize the transcription process, from start to finish. Check out the necessary steps to get you on your way to completing that transcription task efficiently.

Step 1. Prepare Your Tools and Equipment

Make sure you’ve prepared all the necessary tools and equipment before you begin to transcribe.

A comfortable or ergonomic chair creates a huge difference in keeping your body relaxed during hours of transcription work. It supports your lower back, promotes good posture, and ensures proper blood circulation. Adjust the seat to your preferred position.

Use good quality, noise-canceling headphones. Over-ear headsets are the most comfortable as they encase your entire ear and isolate distracting noise. Human voice frequencies lie between 250 Hz and 2000 Hz, the midrange of sound. We recommend headphones that have a pronounced yet smooth midrange.

Keep your essential every day carry items close. Eyeglasses, a bottle of water, a cup of coffee, or mobile phone should have already been placed on your desk to reduce distractions while doing transcription work.

An online reference such as soft copies of a dictionary or Google helps you quickly search for unfamiliar terms and the context to its meaning.

A foot pedal lets you control dictation playback with your toes. You can play, rewind, and fast forward by tapping sections of the pedal with your foot. You can setup your foot pedal to work with Scribie’s transcription software.

Step 2. Find a Good Transcription Software

There are web-based transcription tools that let you upload and transcribe your entire recordings online. These are your best friends in getting transcripts done–fast.

Scribie’s all-in-one transcription software has built-in tools and shortcuts to make everything easier from start to finish. You can even automatically transcribe your file to cut down time spent on transcription.

Basically, you can transcribe on Scribie in three simple steps:

  1. Upload your file.
  2. Scribie transcribes automatically.
  3. Check and edit the transcript.

Step 3. Amplify Volume and Increase the Audio Quality

Not all recordings are made equal. If you have a difficult file with plenty of background noise, there are ways you can increase its audio quality.

Scribie has a built-in dynamic range compressor that automatically increases the audio quality of your file for transcription. It reduces the volume of unnecessary loud sounds and amplifies sections that are difficult to hear. As we’ve been mastering transcription for about a decade, we continuously optimize tools like these.

Step 4. Familiarize Yourself with the Tools

Make the most out of your transcription software. Buckle up for your transcription journey by getting to know your tools.

Scribie has a timestamped audio player and fully-featured integrated text editor–everything you need for transcription. There are built-in tools, keyboard shortcuts, and a control panel that you can customize to fit your work process.

Scribie’s tools and shortcuts:

The word expander saves time by predicting and expanding the word you’re typing. Frequently used words allow an overview of what words to expect in your recording. This saves you from guessing a vague term.

Spellcheck provides you with suggestions to autocorrect any potential spelling mistakes.

Slow down or speed up audio to catch every word.

Use keyboard shortcuts to pause, skip, forward, or rewind to a certain time in the recording.

Identify mistakes with a blue underline through Scribie’s AI tool.

For recordings with heavy accents, you can dictate and transcribe the file using our voice recognition software.

If you happen to have little idea of your recording’s content, you have the option to automatically transcribe your file. This gives you a nice overview of what to expect and speeds up transcription.

Step 5. During Transcription

Here’s a pro tip: Many transcribers put speech to text by matching the transcript and audio word-for-word. We actually recommend against that. Instead, listen to the entire conversation and use context to interpret and identify the correct words.

During transcription, you may come across unfamiliar content such as technical or medical terms. Do a Google search for context or install soft copies of an online dictionary for a quick definition.

Don’t get hung up on a difficult word, though. There may be certain terms or words that are difficult to catch where you end up pausing and rewinding multiple times. Skip them. Leave a blank in the meantime and get back to those words you missed later to avoid breaking your flow.

Avoid context switching and juggling different tasks at the same time. Alternating between transcribing and editing becomes tiresome. Instead, do one thing at a time.

Begin the task by putting on your transcription hat and focusing on the transcription task ahead. The first draft doesn’t have to be perfect. Once you’ve completely transcribed the entire recording, whether manually or automatically, you can pivot your attention to editing and refining the transcript.

Step 6. Edit the Transcript

Re-play the audio, go over your draft, and zoom in on the ff:

  • Areas left blank or missed
  • Misheard words, terms, or expressions
  • Misspelled words
  • Punctuation
  • Formatting

Use Scribie’s spellcheck and AI tool to identify any misspellings or mistakes that may have slipped through.

Over to You

Transcription work can be rewarding for those with an eye for detail and quality content.

Breaking the transcription process down into step-by-step increments makes long hours seem easy and do-able. While a great transcription software saves time and effort.

We’re always on the lookout for opportunities to make transcription as easy as possible for our transcribers.

Scribie offers online transcription jobs for beginners and seasoned professionals. Learn more about how you can join Scribie as a freelancer.

How to Create Promo Videos out of Interviews [Faster with Transcripts]

Allan CaegLeave a comment

As video editors or production managers, you don’t always have the luxury of working with a storyboard or script.

You may have to create a short promo video from pre-existing footages. This could involve re-purposing your subject’s past TV appearances or putting together interviews from respondents who shared their candid feedback.

See how InVision puts together a powerful 2-minute promo video based on original interviews in the example below:

It’s very easy to underestimate the work required to edit that video, yes?

Now, video production agencies are also often asked by clients to edit video content that they haven’t even seen yet.

Consider the typical shooting ratio or the total hours of footage shot in relation to the eventual runtime of the promo video. Raw footage (to be condensed to a less than 5-minute final cut) can run for over two hours!

This means spending loads of time sorting through every piece of footage after production has wrapped before you can even begin editing. We also lose our flow and productivity when we have to switch between context and tasks.

Stick to your budget, save time, and create a top-notch promo video for your clients through transcription.

Without a pre-existing script, transcripts are a post-production lifesaver.

What Can You Expect from a Transcript?

So, what is a post-production transcript in a nutshell? A transcript gives you a highly-accurate, word-for-word account of your video footage. It’s essential to a fast and smooth post-production process.

They include many elements that make life easier for the storyboarding artist or video editor, such as onscreen captions, music cues, scene details, timestamps, and speaker turns.

How do these transcript elements cut editing time in (at least) half?

You can add on-screen captions from automated or manual transcripts, without having to determine every word yourself first.

Transcripts also provide music and applause cues. With a transcript, you’ll be able to catch specific details, scene-by-scene.

Timestamps, aka time coding, are used to sync text in the transcription with specific frames or scenes. This speeds up locating segments for editing during post-production.

If you have more than one person on the footage, speaker turn tracking allows you to identify the different speakers in your file. You’ll also have the option of having each speaker identified by name.

Speed up your video editing workflow with a transcript. Upload your file on Scribie.

3 Post-Production Tips to Create High-Converting Videos

As content moves towards more video-based mediums, which increase conversion rates, more brands need professional promo videos on a shoestring budget.

After all, video content is dominating the online market. Cisco shares that video traffic will account for 82% of all global internet traffic by 2021.

Studies also show that the audiences’ attention spans are getting shorter when it comes to consuming online content. Not many folks will hunker down to watch a 20-minute video nowadays. We need to get to the gist of the matter, like ASAP.

Check out this 2016 study by Wistia. As video length increases, you’ll notice a huge decrease in engagement levels.

If you look closely, the average engagement of video lengths beyond two minutes decline sharply. Wistia’s study suggests videos lengths within the 1-2 minute and 6-12 minute mark retain the most attention.

Keep It Short and Sweet

To keep your promo videos short and sweet, it’s necessary for you to efficiently sift through hours of footage to find the relevant footage in the reel. A transcript helps editors zero in on what matters for audiences.

Tailor Videos to the Message

As video editors, time is money. And the more time you spend on a single project for a client, you could lose out on other projects. You may be tempted to save time and cram everything in the reel to a single promo video, but for high-converting videos, you’ll need to clarify the message.

A tailored video with a clear message and a specific goal will be much more effective. Transcripts help you stay organized and on top of things. You’ll be able to have a clear overview of the entire contents of the raw file and highlight important points from any long footage.

Immediately Grab the Audience’s Attention

A transcript on hand also lets you create videos that get to the point within seconds. The average attention span is only 8 seconds. Knowing that viewers would click away if you don’t grab their attention immediately, you need to get the message across right away.

A goldfish’s attention span is 9 seconds, a second more than the typical viewer.

A transcript helps you quickly figure out the “why” of your video, and how to immediately captivate and entrench viewers into the middle of things from the onset.

Process and Workflow

Editing can be daunting. A documentary involving multiple interviews, for example, can amount to 30 hours of footage. Reduce your video edit time and cost.

Here are the steps to efficiently create promo videos out of your raw interview footage.

  1. Upload all “rushes” or unedited material on Scribie to convert your video file into a text document or transcript.
  2. Scribie’s transcription software adds a timestamp to your file to help you identify any point in the video, even by the second.
  3. You can edit the automated transcript yourself through our browser-based editor, or delegate the task to our transcription specialists.
  4. Transcripts are then downloaded and used to assist in the video editing process.

Over to You

Transcripts save time, money, and effort.

Whether you had a hand in the shoot or were brought in during post-production, transcripts guarantee that you have total control over your raw interview footage.

Efficiently produce an attention-grabbing and high-converting promo video that perfectly aligns with your client’s goals.

Let Scribie be your post-production partner for promo videos. Upload your raw interview footage for a transcript now.

5 Best Practices While Recording a Video

Rajiv PoddarLeave a comment
Video Recording Best practices

“Recording is only half the work done. What truly matters, is what goes into making a video stand out from the rest and deliver what its audience seeks” goes a general saying.

Recording a video isn’t just about the tools and tech that brings it together but the way it is done.

Have you ever come across people who take much trouble to churn out a perfect video, get their tools right, choose the perfect setting, but the audio output isn’t of great quality? Or those that have a great video, but one that isn’t clear and therefore cannot be transcribed properly? Continue reading “5 Best Practices While Recording a Video” →

25 Must Have Tools for Video Creators

Rajiv PoddarLeave a comment
Video Creation tools

Have you ever wondered what it takes to come up with that alluring video which captivates both money and audience?

Well, it’s the strategic move of the impeccable video creator, who’s on the nose balance between tasks and tool, lets him filter out the champagne quality taste.

Therefore, after immense research on the sum of perspective and experience of varied videographers, we are here to baptize your video creation task for that extra amount of shapeliness. Continue reading “25 Must Have Tools for Video Creators” →

Is Podcast Transcription Necessary?

Rajiv PoddarLeave a comment

With Podcasts becoming one of the more prominent content channels, it is crucial that content creators take podcast transcriptions a lot more seriously.

With some of the best podcasters out there, churning out brilliant content regularly, there is a huge upside to converting those audio clips into text formats (transcripts).

Continue reading “Is Podcast Transcription Necessary?” →

10 Things to Know Before Starting a Youtube Channel

Rajiv PoddarLeave a comment
10 things to know before getting started on

Having transcribed thousands of videos this is one of the questions that we would like to answer in terms of YouTube content creation in particular.

As you may all be well aware of the fact that, YouTube today is the second biggest search engine in the world. Second only to the mighty Google. YouTube is a Google property and it is expected to have top quality content and deliver an experience that is consistent with other Google products. Having said that, YouTube although has a lot of professional content creators, it also has its fair share of amateur content creators who play a crucial path in its growth. Continue reading “10 Things to Know Before Starting a Youtube Channel” →

Beginner Transcriber Guide and Quick Tips

Becca Thomas3 Comments

If you are new to transcription, consider this your quick start guide.  You’ll find a few tips in this concise guide to get you off on the right foot for you transcription career. Continue reading “Beginner Transcriber Guide and Quick Tips” →

Why Scribie Is The Top Transcription Service

Becca Thomas2 Comments
Scribie Top Transcription Service

What A Top Transcription Service Offers

If you’ve ever found yourself in need of a transcription service, you know that by doing a Google search, you will see a lot of results. Just because there are many transcription services out there, doesn’t mean that they all match up to each other. Continue reading “Why Scribie Is The Top Transcription Service” →