Captioning Your Videos: A Guide For Every Social Media Platform

Can you believe nearly 85% of mobile users watch social media videos with the sound OFF? Truthfully, I can. I almost never have my sound on- I’m always worried about my phone going off in an exam room or waking up a kiddo at home. It’s just easier for to leave the phone’s sound off. 

Consider this stat along with the facts that: 
1) videos are the preferred social media content (from the perspective of users and algorithms alike) and 
2) we have just a few short seconds to capture our viewer’s attention. 

Combined, these reasons make captioning your videos a worthy investment of time and in some cases, money. Captions are a great way to improve the length of watch time as well as getting your viewer to understand your message. 

Even on image-heavy Instagram, captions can increase view time by 12%. 
​
Adding captions sounds hard, but really can be done in just a few steps. Here’s the roundup of the platforms and options: 

A quick note about file type: I had never heard of an .SRT file (SubRip file type) before I started captioning videos, so don’t feel bad if you hadn’t either!

Facebook

Auto-generated:

• ​​Click Photo/Video at the top of your timeline or News Feed.
• After the video has loaded and you’ve added your title and description, click “subtitles and captions” in the right hand toolbar. 
• Click “Auto-generate” under “Add New Captions.”  
• Wait for Facebook to quickly generate and add your file before posting
  
  Upload your own caption file (We recommend Rev.com to generate): 
  • Click Photo/Video at the top of your timeline or News Feed.
  • After the video has loaded and you’ve added your title and description, click “subtitles and captions” in the right hand toolbar. 
  • Click “Upload” under “Add New Captions.” 
  • Select your file and click next when uploading is complete. Note: you’ll be looking for a file that looks like this: YourCaptionFile.en_US.srt. 
  • Choose the default language for your caption file (English).
  • Publish Your Video 
    
    Adding captions to previously posted videos: 
  • Click “Edit Post” and follow the steps above
    
    LinkedIn
  • Create a new post and click the video icon to add a video to it.
  • When it has fully loaded but before posting, click the Edit icon in the upper right corner
  • Select video settings
  • Select file
  • Attach your SRT file
  • Click save
  • Add any additional text, hashtags, etc and post!
    
    The only downside with adding captions to a LinkedIn video is that currently, I haven’t found a way to schedule captioned content.​ 
    
    

Instagram
Unfortunately, the only way to include subtitles on your Instagram videos is to have them be a part of the original file. There are a few apps that can help with this, or traditional video editing software like Adobe Premier Pro. 

YouTube

• Go to your Video Manager by clicking your account in the top right > Creator Studio > Video Manager > Videos.
• Next to the video you want to add captions or subtitles to, click the drop-down menu next to the Edit button.
• Select Subtitles/CC.
• Click the Add new subtitles or CC button.
• Choose how you want to add or edit subtitles or closed captions to your video:
  
  Note: If you’re using a service like Rev.com, you’re in luck! Rev integrates with YouTube and will auto-upload your captions! 
  
  

Twitter

• Click on a video within your Media Studio library.
• Select the “Subtitles” tab in the pop-up window.
• Select the text language of your subtitle file from the dropdown menu.
• Click the “Upload” button and select the .SRT file from your local computer.
• The file is now associated with your video. To update the file, click the Pencil icon.

Happy Captioning!
​The Social DVM Team