Every business is a social brand in the digital age and video content is continuously found to be the most engaging format on social – especially on mobile devices. Whether you’re promoting video ads on Facebook, sharing webinar clips on LinkedIn or working towards that next YouTube Creator Award, video is the present and future of social engagement. So, the question we’re asking in this article is whether professional video subtitling services deserve a place in your social media strategy or whether you can rely on auto-subs instead to fill the role.
How reliable are auto-subs for social content?
The question is, what is good enough for your needs? Professional video subtitling services will always provide better quality than auto-subs, but a YouTuber publishing videos to a few thousand viewers in their native language probably isn’t going to invest in professional subs for every video they upload.
That said, a YouTuber with millions of viewers spread out around the world may want to upload professional subs for multiple languages as part of their strategy for maximising reach and monetising their channel.
The more important accuracy becomes, the more professional subtitling services are the way to go. As a general rule, anything that is monetised or professional is a good candidate for professional subs, but this isn’t the only reason to need 100% accuracy.
Here are some other important reasons:
- Accessibility: You want to ensure deaf and hard-of-hearing audiences can fully engage with your video.
- Multilingual footage: If you are targeting multilingual audiences, you will want professional subs for each target language.
- Social UX: Most social networks auto-play videos in silence (by default), making quality subtitles an important part of the viewing experience.
- Quality control: Not all social networks provide auto-subs and the quality varies so professional services give you full control across every platform.
- Reputation: If your reputation is on the line, you don’t want to risk it on the quality of auto-sub algorithms.
- Clarity: If it is important that your message is received exactly as intended, pro subs are the way to go.
- Complexity: If the message in your content is complex, auto-subs may struggle with accuracy.
- Conversational speech: Algorithms often have trouble with natural conversational speech.
- Audio quality: If there is any background noise, audio interruptions or audio quality issues, auto-subs will have problems.
As you can see from the list above, there is quite a lot to consider in the decision between auto-subs and professional subtitling services. Essentially, it all comes down to how important accuracy is in your social video strategy.
Do you need professional video subtitling services?
If you are unsure whether your social media strategy can benefit from professional video subtitling services, you can speak to our subtitle team by emailing us at contact@translateplus.com.