Creating a video has always been one of the best ways to promote a product or service. With the presence of popular video hosting sites, video marketing is now easier than before. However, countless videos uploaded everyday get very little views simply because they make the mistake of not having subtitles. Adding some words to your video might seem trivial at first glance, but subtitles actually help increase views because of the following reasons.
Foreigners will be able to watch it
Millions of Internet users cannot read English. By adding foreign subtitles to your video, you’re basically opening yourself to an international audience. For example, Japanese people will most likely skip your video if there are no Hiragana or Kanji subtitles showing what’s going on in or what’s being said in your video. This also works the other way; an English-speaking person won’t be able to comprehend a Japanese video without subtitles so he or she will most likely ignore your video and look for something else. The more foreign audiences you wish to reach out to you, the more subtitle languages you should have.
People who can’t hear properly will still be able to watch your video
Even if your video is in a language that your viewers can understand, it won’t get a lot of views from those who can’t hear it properly. People watching videos in noisy areas will not be able to catch the important lines in your video, but adding subtitles gets rid of that problem. In fact, even people without working sound systems can still “hear” what your video has to say. This also saves you the hassle of creating a different version of your video specifically for deaf/hearing impaired people, which can also use up a lot of your own resources
Some prefer the original audio
Nobody wants to watch a video that sounds off. This can be especially true for videos in foreign languages. This problem is more evident with dubbing, where a short word in one language can be translated to a larger word in another. Many viewers are put off by poorly-timed dubs, which take away the quality of an otherwise great video. To make things worse, you may have to shell out more cash to hire someone to dub your video. Adding subtitles means viewers can understand what’s being said in the video without affecting its overall quality and burning a hole through your resources. Adding subtitles to your video can make the difference between a video going viral and a largely-forgotten upload. If you’re considering creating video for a bit of marketing, you should definitely consider adding subtitles for multiple languages to your videos and help secure more viewers. Still, you have to remember that getting enough views is not your ultimate goal. You have to make sure that the overall presentation of the video is perfect. With excellent content and subtitles, your video is bound to get a lot of site views and more frequent visitors.
This article was published on behalf of Emre Akkas. Emre works at Globalme Language & Technology. Globalme provides a wide range of language related services including voice over dubbing and foreign language video subtitling. See Globalme media localization page for more information.
