The latest statistics on online video consumption claim that an astounding 91.8% of all internet users worldwide (estimated to be 5.18 billion as of April 2023) watch videos weekly. That means that close to 65% of the total world population belongs to a group that consumes online videos every week.
Out of all those billions of weekly video watchers, an average user in 2023 will spend approximately 17 hours a week doing it. Most of it is YouTube videos, but other video content is included in these stats. That’s a slight drop from the previous two years (18 and 19 hours a week, respectively for 2021 and 2022), but still higher than any year before 2021.
The most popular videos online are:
- music videos (watched by 47.8% of global internet users at least once a week),
- comedy, meme, or viral videos (34.8%)
- live video streams (28.5%)
- tutorial videos (26.4%)
- sports clips (26%)
- educational videos (25.7%)
- product review videos (25%)
- gaming videos (23.7%)
- and finally, influencer videos and vlogs (23.4%).
Regarding e-commerce business and creating a video marketing strategy, the significant numbers to observe are those concerning tutorials, product reviews, influencer videos, and live video streams.
Let's closely consider all these mind-boggling statistics. It becomes clear that having an online video presence becomes a necessity no matter what your industry or niche is.
And where there's video content, there's also the need for transcription.
Transcription helps you maximize your video files' potential, so transcription software becomes a must-have tool for all content creators.
And no, there is no room for excuses not to transcribe your audio or video files, even if you're not great at video editing. It's easier than ever to create an accurate transcription with all the easy to use tools at your disposal.
Let's dive a bit deeper and understand why you should make a transcription of all your video files.
Why Is Video Transcription a Must?
Now, we will take a look at some of these features and the reasons why video transcripts are an absolute must for your video files:
Video transcription software can help you repurpose your video file into written content
Yes, converting video files into written text is precisely what transcription means. However, when you think about it from the perspective of a content creator, it makes the entire idea of a video to text transcript so much more compelling.
Usually, it takes days or even weeks to create written content that you can publish on your website or repurpose on social media platforms.
However, it takes four times less time and effort to transcribe a video file. Especially if you use video transcription software. You get to edit transcripts and upload that plain text content as a blog post instantly.
You could have an entire interview transcription ready to be published as a high-quality article within minutes. Not to mention - you can always translate it into multiple languages and reach an even broader audience. Accurate transcriptions are golden for every content creator who wants to save time.
Writing is not the only way you can use transcripts for content. You have limited access to a subject matter expert when writing content. You can get them to record themselves talking about the things you need to learn and create a transcript of their recording.
That transcription can serve as your cheat sheet, social media post library, inspiration for other types of content, and so much more. You get a ton of work done for you, just by remembering to transcribe your recordings or even meetings.
Video transcription allows accessibility for deaf viewers and/or viewers that are hard of hearing
Creating subtitles for TV programs was initially prompted by the Communications Act of 2003, which set forth subtitling and quotas for UK broadcast television.
Considering that their original purpose was to provide an equal entertainment experience and to increase access for those viewers who are deaf and/or hard of hearing, it’s no surprise that content accessibility is the number one benefit of video transcription.
According to Forbes Health, it’s currently estimated that more than 70 million people worldwide are deaf, and more than 1.5 billion people worldwide are affected by hearing loss in at least one ear. And why wouldn’t you want to make your content accessible to everyone equally, regardless of their hearing status?
It’s a no-brainer, even if video editing is not your forte. Contemporary video transcription software that you can use to upload video files, export transcripts, and turn them into subtitles is a must-have nowadays.
To put it in the simplest terms, adding transcription to your video file is a super easy way to enlarge your audience and dramatically increase your views without the need to create new content.
Video transcription helps audience comprehension
You may be surprised to learn that subtitles are not only used by the deaf and or hard of hearing. An Ofcom study from 2006 found that approximately 80% of television viewers in the UK used subtitles for reasons other than hearing loss as an effective way to make programs understood.
The reasons include the proliferation of reality programming, where dialogue is unscripted and potentially less articulate or easily audible.
Another reason may be the use of various local, regional, and international accents that may not always be easy to understand if you aren’t familiar with a particular accent.
And that’s not all. Transcription can help viewers focus (especially in our era of ever-shortening attention spans) and allow them to watch content in noisy or quiet environments. Those are only some reasons why these transcription services can improve comprehension for all viewers, regardless of their hearing status.
Using video transcription as an effective learning aid
A study conducted by Oregon State University discovered that 75% of students who used captions used them as a learning aid, and 52% of students said they help improve comprehension. Moreover, 66% of students who speak English as a second language found captions "very" or "extremely" helpful.
Another study by Michigan State University showed that captions help counterbalance individual differences in cognitive processing ability, especially when learners are appropriately challenged and are motivated to learn from the videos.
In other words, listening to a video and reading subtitles simultaneously helps comprehension; it’s also a useful way to study a foreign language when students are motivated to learn.
Improving your SEO with video transcription
SEO (search engine optimization) isn’t just for articles. Adding a transcript will enable your video to rank higher in search results on YouTube and Google, the two most visited websites in the world. Without transcriptions, Googlebots cannot understand your content correctly, making ranking it higher in their search results impossible.
When you add transcription, you make it easier for Google to make your video content more searchable, making it more likely that it will appear on the first couple of search pages, thus increasing your exposure and awarding you with traffic.
Video transcriptions can also help your SEO keyword strategy, so you should use the transcripts to find the prominent keywords mentioned in your video and then add them to your descriptions and metadata.
Video transcriptions also help with translation
You can unlock a lot of traffic using a video translator to boost your reach. Of course, the first step to translating your content is using software to create transcriptions. Your software can transcribe your content and provide a transcript you can easily translate. You can export and repurpose this transcript or use it to create subtitles.
This is where Subly shines since it will not only help you add subtitles in English, but in other languages, as well. Namely, it can transcribe and translate that transcription into over 70 languages, with up to 98% accuracy in speech recognition.
It is a superb but easy to use video transcription software that can transcribe your video to text in minutes. It also supports format conversion, so you can transcribe your video and then convert that file into SRT, VTT, or TXT.
This way, video transcription will help you remove language barriers and cost-effectively attract an entirely new audience without creating new content.
So, there are the main reasons why video transcription is a must. And with the help of an app like Subly, there are simply no excuses not to invest a little bit of time and effort into creating video transcription that will pay off for you in the long run.
You can save on transcription services since Subly is one of those fast, accurate, and easy to use software options that help you transcribe video content like a pro.
