Video transcription, a valuable service in today’s digital age, plays a pivotal role in making multimedia content accessible to a wider audience. Whether you’re a content creator, marketer, or educator, video transcription services can greatly enhance the reach and usability of your video content. By converting spoken words into written text, this service not only improves SEO but also ensures that your videos are more inclusive and easily understandable to viewers of all backgrounds and abilities
Do you use videos as a part of your marketing strategy? According to Small Business Trends, consumers prefer watching videos about a product than reading about it. In 2020, it was estimated that there were over three billion internet users worldwide who watched streaming or downloaded video via any device at least once per month. Hence, the demand for videos is exponentially increasing not just for entertainment purposes but also for promoting products, educating people, and delivering information over various digital platforms.
This huge popularity of videos has inspired businesses and marketing professionals to leverage video marketing to meet the needs and requirements of today’s customers. As stated by OBERLO, 86% of marketers use videos as an effective marketing tool. They have found that videos boost customers’ engagement and enable them to get more leads.
However, depending solely on the audiovisual materials in your videos will never guarantee the success of your video content or achieve the reach you are dreaming of. This is where video transcription comes into play. Video transcripts help you reach out to the highest number of customers by making it more accessible to people of all categories, increasing your brand’s visibility and recognition.
In this article, we will go over the definition of video transcription and its uses, and explain how it benefits businesses in many aspects. Let’s jump right in!
What Is Video Transcription?
In the simplest of terms, it is the process of transforming a video’s audio-visual components into a readable text using speech recognition, transcription software, or human transcriptionists. The process does not just stop at translating or transcribing the spoken language, it also entails transcribing music, sound effects, speakers’ gestures, laughter, crying, and even silence. All in all, video transcription is expected to give readers all the video experience even without watching the video itself.
Video transcription and closed captions may be conceived interchangeably. However, closed captions are just a part of video transcription. Captions represent the time-synchronized text that appears at the bottom of the screen. Conversely, transcription is the full-text version that includes all the generated captions.
The Uses of Video Transcription
Creating high-quality video transcripts will be beneficial in many ways. The following are some of the aspects in which transcripts can be used:
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- They can be used to facilitate the process of translating video content into other languages.
- We can use them in writing blogs and social media posts instead of using new content every time
- Video transcripts can be downloaded as an SRT file to add captions.
- You can use the video transcript of an already published video to create the content of upcoming videos by answering questions or elaborating on ideas that have been referred to.
- We can use video transcripts in writing summaries, e-books, and guides.
What Are the Benefits of Video Transcription?
Owing to the vast amount of videos being shared every day over many social media platforms and the fact that they are easily watched and shared, it has become inevitable to make the content of such videos more accessible and user-friendly to ensure their success.
There are a multitude of benefits for video transcription. Here are some of the key benefits:
Enhancing Video Accessibility
As reported by the World Health Organization, around 466 million people have disabling hearing loss. Do not they have the right to watch your videos too? Transcribing your videos will give the deaf or hard-of-hearing equal opportunities to fully consume your video content by getting access to not only the spoken words, but also all the non-spoken elements such as music, laughter, coughing, lightning, thunder, and human gestures. Thus, video transcription plays a pivotal role in increasing your reach by making your content accessible to more viewers.
Aiding Those in Sound-prohibitive Environments
Video transcription is also key for people who are in sound-prohibitive environments such as hospitals, planes, and working offices where playing audio is not allowed or accepted. Furthermore, it has been found that 75% of people watch videos without sounds. Hence, it is an effective solution for such individuals to have full access to the video content even without watching it. This will, in turn, improve your videos’ accessibility and skyrocket the number of viewers by catering to their preferences and needs, especially for businesses aiming at expanding their reach.
Boosting Your SEO
Since search engines such as Google cannot crawl videos, transcripts will help them rank your videos. By identifying your videos’ accompanying text such as transcripts and closed captions, search engines will be able to recognize your videos and rank them easily. You can also foster your SEO keyword strategy by adding relevant keywords in your video transcripts, and; consequently, you will be able to drive more organic traffic to your content. In short, video transcription increases the visibility and significance of your videos.
Improving User Experience and Comprehension
Transcribing your videos will enhance viewers’ watching experience and foster their understanding of your content. They can get back to your transcript whenever they want to revise a specific piece of information or share part of the text on social media. They will also be able to catch any missing information.
In addition, video transcription greatly benefits non-native speakers who prefer reading over watching videos. It is also paramount for those who are learning the language of the video and need to get more vocabulary and learn the correct spelling of words. In this context, a video transcript acts as an effective study guide.
The Bottom Line
Due to the popularity of online videos which have become more shareable and watchable using any device, video transcription services have become demandable more than ever to cater to the needs and preferences of people of all categories.
If videos are an essential part of your marketing strategies, do not miss using video transcription to increase your reach, improve your SEO, and build long-lasting relationships with your customers. Yet, only accurate transcription services can make your video content impactful and beneficial for your target audiences and keep you ahead of the pack.
Afrolingo is a reliable translation agency in South Africa that provides the highest quality transcription services. At Afrolingo, our professional transcribers can work on all types of content and identify different accents and dialects to deliver flawless and best-in-class transcription services. So, what are you waiting for? Contact us right now!
