Tap into the power of video transcripts to make your content more accessible and get a greater return on your marketing efforts.
From YouTube, to Instagram, and TikTok, the world has pivoted to video content in a major way. You are missing out, though, if you’re ignoring the potential of video transcripts.
Backed by strong video transcription, you can increase the reach of your videos in very meaningful ways. Let us look at a few ways your business can be positively impacted by video transcripts.
How Video Transcripts Can Help Your Business Grow
Transcription is the process of converting audio into text. Video transcripts can help your marketing efforts in four primary ways.
1. Boost Your SEO
Search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing can’t crawl video content (yet).
The visual medium must therefore be supported with well-written, keyword-rich scripts in order to become effectively searchable.
Video transcripts elevate the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) of a brand or website by providing supplemental content that helps you rise in organic rankings.
It could be the difference between appearing on the first page in Google searches or being buried among the competition.
Without a well-laid-out video transcript, you are failing to fully extend the potential reach of your content.
2. Increase ROI of Video Content
As a result of that SEO boost, video transcripts can result in a bump in website traffic and user engagement by drawing new visitors to the site. They can also be used in social media campaigns that feature the content being promoted and product being pushed.
All of that leads to an increase on your return on investment (ROI).
Video transcripts can also be repurposed for other formats such as eBooks, blogs, whitepapers, infographics, and email marketing campaigns.
In addition to being able to repurpose content from the video, you are creating additional lead generation opportunities on multiple channels without having to produce an entirely new piece of content.
3. Increase Accessibility
It’s important to make all your content accessible to a wide range of people, including those with disabilities.
By only providing a visual product, you’re closing the door on people with blindness or low vision, deafness or hearing loss, photosensitivity and others will accessibility issues.
You’re also ignoring a key tool in helping those for whom English is a second language. It’s well established that captions on the popular 90s sitcom Friends have helped many learn English over the years.
On top of that, people can’t always keep the volume up on their computers of mobile phones, or in fact choose to keep them on silent. Adding a transcript makes the video accessible in all contexts.
Transcripts and captions can’t be treated as an afterthought any longer – it’s not enough for your videos to be found, but also to be consumable by all by whatever means necessary.
4. Expand Your International Reach
To expand into international markets, localizing your video content is one of the most critical steps.
A large part of video localization, is translation. The process involves interpreting the text in its source language and rendering it into the target language while preserving the original meaning.
Since only around 20% of the world’s population speaks English, video transcripts are a great way to get your message out there more widely.
Fully localizing your videos is about more than translation. It involves not only accurately reproducing the video’s text or script into another language, but also adapting the content of the video to tailor it to different cultures and local customs.
However, attempting to record your videos in multiple languages can be time and cost prohibitive. For most videos, transcription and translation are much more effective use of resources.
Here are a few options when it comes to your video content:
- Subtitles: While viewers will still see hear the video in its original language, you can overlay text at the bottom of the screen that has been translated into other languages and screened for cultural references that might not work in other regions of the world.
- Dubbing: Instead of relying on subtitles, you can record people speaking in the target language and add the audio in lieu of English.
- Transcripts: One of the simplest ways to localize video content is to translate the audio and post the text underneath in the appropriate language. This will not only help get the message across, but it will offer a valuable SEO boost as mentioned above.
Video Transcription Done Right
If you are investing in video content, adding transcripts, subtitles or voiceovers will not only drastically widen the reach of a brand, but also ensure a better return on your marketing efforts.
Video content gives potential customers a stimulating, simple and fun way engage with your brand and marketing campaigns. Accompanying transcripts make your content more accessible and easier to find and open the door to effective localization.
It’s a win-win, really. Not only are you demonstrating the importance of accessibility, but you are also adding to your potential customer base.
It’s important to use the right video translation and localization partner.
SLT offers efficient multilingual transcription services that allow your content to be optimized and accessed in more meaningful ways.
To extend your brand’s reach, engagement, and impact, contact us today.
