VoiceBox, Part of Wolfestone Group

Do you know why closed captions were originally designed?  

Well, closed captions were first introduced with the aim of aiding the deaf and hard-of-hearing community when watching visual content, such as TV shows and movies.  

Fast forward to today, however, and more than 80% of people aged 18-24 now use captions when watching videos on any device.  

So, what does this mean? Well, the majority of the people are using captions, so adding them to your business’s multimedia content, across social media platforms and website pages, can only boost and benefit your brand. 

 

In this blog, we are going to look at the top 3 ways in which your business’s multimedia content can benefit from closed captions:

 

1. Closed captions make your content more accessible  

One of the core aspects of closed captions is their ability to increase accessibility.  

 Closed captions were developed to accommodate the deaf and hard-of-hearing community by having the script of the video turned into text that is time-synchronised to the video content.  

In the United Kingdom, there are 11 million people who are a part of the deaf and hard of hearing community. By introducing captions and other accessibility tools to your content then the ability to expand your customer reach is phenomenal and can be a great benefit to the organisation.    

 

2. Reaching international audiences with multilingual captions  

Multilingual closed captioning can help businesses translate content into several languages.  

Offering options in a variety of languages can have numerous advantages for both your business and your audience; including the ability to appeal to international markets. 

 If your business is aiming to expand globally or you want your content to be available to the masses, then multilingual closed captions are one way you can make your business’s content as inclusive as possible.  

 

3. Boosting SEO through closed captioning  

Did you know that 85% of companies are introducing video content to their websites?  

It’s no surprise with Google’s latest algorithm, shifts toward content as this can improve customers’ understanding of how a product or service works. However, to enhance the SEO of your content, you should go one step further to introduce closed captions. Search engines, like Google, recognise the contents of your video content, however, introducing captions allows these search engines to read and compare the content of the video against the search term you’re trying to rank for.  

So, for your business to rank highly on search engines, you should make your multimedia content as SEO-friendly as possible.  

A bar graph increasing with a quote reading "adding closed captions to your multimedia content can increase views by 13.5% in the first 14 days"

Introducing closed captions to your multimedia content is a proven way to achieve all these advances and more. Whether you are aiming to expand globally or make your content more accessible, then our close captioning services can benefits you.  

VoiceBox is a multimedia agency that works with an expert team of captioners to deliver high-quality services. Are you interested in working with a customer-driven multimedia agency? Get in contact with VoiceBox today 

 

Information correct: 25/07/22 

Useful links: 

What are Closed Captions? 

Viewers prefer using captions  

Facts about content marketing