Why and How: Captions on Facebook

Fact: 85% of video consumed on Facebook is done without sound. (Ref: DigiDay)

So does that mean we need to go all Charlie Chapman on people? Probably not, but if you could pull it off, that would be a lot of fun. Instead, we need to add captions. Captions when done properly, are not built into the video but an add-on through Facebook’s caption system. This provides captions that show when a video is silent and no captions when the sound is on.

Facebook says they see as much as a 12% increase in viewing time when videos include captions. This with the vast majority of people watching video without sound, this is something that cannot be ignored my marketers.

Additionally, captions help to make your video’s more accessible to audiences who may be hearing impaired. Though this is not an audience most of us think about, it is an important thing to consider when we are doing our marketing.

So how do you add captions? I have 2 ways.

1. Through Facebook: Just recently Facebook introduced a captioning tool for videos being used as Ads. When creating an ad you will have the option to use automatically generated captions and modify them to make sense. Though the tech is impressive, it still comes out unclear. Review them and edit them. This is a time-consuming process, but the benefit is there.
2. Manually. You can submit .SRT files for any video you create. Though simple, it is hard to find a step by step online. So here is a short one.
   1. Open a text editor. Meaning a program like notepad or textedit.
   2. Name the file with this structure: “filename.(twoletter languagecode)_(two letter country code).srt” That file name ought to be exactly the same as the file name of the video. Here is a link to language and country codes.
   3. Make sure that file is saving as a plain text file, no formatting is needed for this.
   4. The begin scripting out the video:
      Here is the format:
      (# of caption)
      (Time stamp, to time stamp)
      (Actual Caption)1

      00:00:02,000 –> 00:00:03,000
      Do you want to be successful?
      2
      00:00:04,000 –> 00:00:05,450

      Being successful is not about talent

   5. Proceed to do this through the entire video. Here is an example of a complete one I did for a CO:mmunicate promotional video. (Click here for example .srt file.)
   6. When you upload your video to Facebook, look for the “Captions” option and add this file.
   7. Be sure to preview it in Facebook and make changes to the file and reupload as necessary. Sometimes it’s difficult to get the timing down without watching it live.
   8. Impress all your friends that your videos have captions!

Those are the steps to create captions for your next Facebook video! Good luck!