Captioning Videos: Special Topics

Vintage TV with legs and a striped wall behind. Credit: AlexAntropov86 on Pixabay.

Here’s a round-up of short captioned topics and tips. These used to be in the giant captioned video guide. But it was becoming unwieldy and I wanted to take out instructions for software as that’s always changing. I also separated out the Captioning Videos FAQ. Captions Revealing Secrets Should captions reveal secrets? Sometimes the speaker … Read more

Does Your Video Make These 6 Common Caption Mistakes?

Video still of Meryl with long captions

You review your captioned video one more time for caption mistakes. It contains no typos. The captions sync up with the audio. They have a blackish background with a whitish font. The captions show no signs of any leftovers from automatic captions aka autocraptions. That means it’s captimized right? Captimize is my term for captions … Read more

6 Reasons Why Automatic Captions Are a Big Problem

Problem with Autocaptions slide. Captions say "Thanks for capturing Russian traction Valium concentration happened crippling."

Would you publish an article on your website if it has typos and other errors? Well, then. Would you publish captions on your website if it has typos and other errors? That’s what automatic captions are and why I call them autocraptions. Automatic captions are like a person or synthesized voice speaking flatly without inflection … Read more

Why and How to Create Accessible Social Media and Website Content

Number sign marked in sand on a beach

Content accessibility isn’t just the responsibility of the design and production team. It’s everyone’s job. OK. Maybe content marketing doesn’t know to add alt text to images. Maybe a salesperson doesn’t know PDFs need to be accessible. Maybe a graphic designer doesn’t know about contrast beyond complementary colors. Do you detect a theme here? I … Read more

Is Your Digital Marketing Missing This Something Extra?

Still of Meryl in a video "And if you caption your videos, start marketing that fact"

Do you buy DVD or Blu-rays anymore? They still have one thing you typically can’t get watching videos on-demand, online, or a streaming network. The special features. The bonuses. The something extra. However, when I check out the extras, I keep my expectations low. It’s because a lot of them don’t have captions. Something I … Read more

3 Compelling Digital Marketing Lessons from Colleges

Son in front of door wearing GO OU shirt

My son is a high school senior. [Pause for dramatic effect.] Of course, it makes this mama emotional. More so because Zachary is the youngest of three. Senior year. You know what that means. Yup. College application time. Time for Zachary to do marketing … himself. But the college process starts long before they’re seniors. … Read more

This Is How to Change Minds in Content and Digital Marketing

Four yellow balls with different facial expressions

Someone tagged me in a post that contained a video showing how to caption with an app.​ As a caption pusher, it excited me. It takes a village to educate folks about why and how to caption videos. That and to spread the word to follow and use #Captioned when posting captioned videos. #Captioned is … Read more

Why Processes Matter More in Times of Crisis

Globe wearing mask

If there’s one thing we can count on, it’s this: prepare for the unexpected. No company can think of every possible scenario that will happen. One of the first things to do is to create a process. There’s always going to be a need for a process or making a change to one. And believe … Read more

10 Guidelines for Creating Great Captioned Videos

10 guidelines for accessible captions: Readable, accurate, synchronized, length, position, sound, credits, voice changes, speaker identification, and motion with one or two sentences describing each one.

We have a new problem with videos. It’s a good problem to have. With more do-it-yourself captioning apps on the market, more people are captioning their videos. However, the options they select for their captions don’t always follow best practices and affect the user experience. When you watch captions for decades, you learn what works … Read more

How to Caption Videos with YouTube

YouTube is a great option because it’s free and you can download the caption text file to use with your video. You can import the caption text file into an app to burn in your captions for open captions. This tutorial assumes you’ve uploaded your video to YouTube. Now, which option do you want to … Read more