Why add subtitles to YouTube videos?

Adding subtitles to your videos can directly affect the results of your content. In this short article we would like to tell you in 3 points why it is worth doing this.

Portion of data for YouTube

First, when you add subtitles, YouTube sees them as a transcript of your material. You give the platform a portion of metadata and keywords that influence how your content will be positioned. Every bit of information about a video is especially important in the case of growing channels that have not yet gathered a wide audience. Thanks to the information contained in the title, description and thumbnail of the video, YouTube obtains data on the topic and directs it to people interested in similar material. The same information YT gets from the subtitles in the videos. It is also worth noting how much of this data will automatically be included in the subtitles, compared to the description of the video itself.

Longer viewing time

Second, content with subtitles has a longer watch time than content without subtitles. They help to focus the viewer's attention on the content of the video. Based on tests conducted by LifeTube, we can see that views with subtitles can be up to a minute and a half longer than those without subtitles. We all know that watch time is the most valuable currency on the platform, so it is worth adding subtitles to the materials. Thanks to them, you will increase the time of watching videos, which should affect the wider distribution of your content.

Opening to a new viewer!

Third, by adding subtitles to your materials, you open yourself up to deaf people. According to Krzysztof Kotyniewicz, President of the Polish Deaf Association, the number of people in need of subtitles due to poor hearing is up to 3,000,000 in PL!

No less important is the group of people who cannot reproduce materials with sound at a given moment. These are people on public transport, students at a boring lecture, participants in a protracted meeting, nursing moms or even people in the office.By adding subtitles, you thereby expand your potential audience! Here's a little tip. It is worth making sure that the subtitles appear already in the first second. Then the viewer receives the info that he can accept this material without sound. You can add subtitles to videos in two ways, either by burning them directly into the video file or by adding them as a separately.srt file to your YouTube publication. Each of the solutions has individual advantages. Direct burning of subtitles in the file will significantly increase their exposure, each viewer will watch the content with subtitles, which can potentially extend the contact with the video. In turn, adding subtitles in.srt format will allow viewers to watch subtitles on demand, so you avoid the risk that subtitles can obscure any key element of the frame, and the content of these subtitles will be interpreted by the platform's algorithms.

We strongly encourage you to add subtitles to your content! All LTTM creators can add subtitles to videos up to a total length of 90 minutes with the Stenograf tool.

If you have any questions about the subtitles, please write to: support@lttm.pl