Using captions on your video is becoming an essential strategy in ensuring engagement. The fact is many people are watching videos on their Facebook feeds with the sound off. However when they are captioned the information can still be delivered in an effective manner.

100 years ago silent movies were all the rage. Images would race across the screen and the key information or dialogue would be expressed by text on the screen. We’ve come so far and seem to have ended back to where the film began.

Of course, times are different. Back then it was because of a lack of technology. Today it is because of an overwhelming of technology.

More and more videos are being consumed on mobile devices. People watch them on the train, at work, in bed and sometimes they don’t want to disturb the people nearby. Captioned videos that automatically play on Facebook allow you to capture a viewer’s attention who can watch your production without needing to hear it.

It has become more important than ever to consider how visually compelling you can make your videos. Audio is valuable and an inspiring music track can do more to move your viewer than mere words or pictures on their own, but given how many people are watching videos without sound, it is time to consider how to tell your story in mute mode.

We could try to insist that people turn on their sound or just accept that this is how it is now. But that’s liking telling the tide to stay where it is. You need to be more adaptable.

This means you need to consider how much impact you can create through clever and appropriate visual storytelling. This video below demonstrates a product and incorporate clear bold on screen text to emphasis the key points. They work virtually like captions but look more designed.

Did you know YouTube can automatically create captions for you? They are not always 100% accurate but they do most of the work for you. You can then if you like, export the captions so you can add them to your Facebook version of your video. You can also use YouTube to transcribe the video into text. It has a handy feature that pauses the video while you are typing. When stopping for a second it starts playing the video again until you start typing again.

Check out this video below to see how you create captions on YouTube.