Automatic Captioning Tool Is Now Offered By Facebook

Automatic Captioning Tool

Photo courtesy of bidnessetc.com.

As of February 10, Facebook offers an automatic captioning tool for brands posting silent videos. This update allows brands to communicate their message through text and visual cues when using the silent autoplay feature. With the use of the new automatic captioning tool, advertisers can insert their message as quickly as possible, encouraging users to stop and watch the video when scrolling through a news feed.

During the company’s 2015 fourth-quarter earnings call, Facebook executives announced that users are now viewing more than 100 million hours of video daily, and the volume of people who watch video daily is 500 million. However, Facebook’s research team found that nearly 80 percent of its users have negative reactions when noisy ads play over their speakers. The social networking service conducted internal tests, finding that video view time increased by 12 percent on average with captions.

In an interview with Business Insider, Graham Mudd, Facebook’s director of ads product marketing, said that the company estimates as many as 40 percent of video ads don’t communicate their message effectively unless the sound is turned on. With that being said, the social network is helping marketers maximize engagement by offering an automatic captioning tool for video ads.

Every second counts for an advertiser. A study for Facebook by Nielsen found that users ability to recall content in a news feed increases to 47 percent after three seconds of viewing and to 74 percent after ten seconds. As you can see based on the study’s findings, it’s important for brands to capture the attention of viewers immediately. That’s where the automatic captioning tool comes into play. Captions are a quick and effective way for brands to get more messaging across to Facebook users.

How does the updated feature work? It’s simple. An advertiser chooses the option of adding an automated caption. The caption is then sent to the brand inside the advert creation software to assess, edit, and then save to their video advert.

Brooke Moore