Video subtitles

Subtitles are done by the editor at the end of post-production, once the copy is final. Automatic transcription produces the base, a human fixes names, numbers and punctuation, then timing and styling are set. About an hour of work for a two minute video. They are either burned into the picture or exported as a separate srt file. The srt file doubles as a transcript for your website.

A client once posted a conference aftermovie on LinkedIn without subtitles. Most people scroll with the sound off, so they saw pictures and understood nothing. Adding subtitles took an hour, but the post could not be swapped without losing its reach. Subtitles belong in the brief, not in the list of afterthoughts.

We need the locked edit and the correct spelling of names, brands and technical terms, ideally in one list. Burned in captions go to Reels and TikTok, an srt file to YouTube and your website, where search engines can read it too. For several languages srt is clearly cheaper, because the picture is never exported again.

Common mistakes: too much text at once. Two lines is the maximum, three and nobody finishes reading. Then there are the dancing word by word captions, which look current and become tiring over a longer video. And subtitles placed too low disappear behind the app interface, so you lose them entirely. Watch the contrast too: white text on a bright shot vanishes without a box or an outline.

Our check is simple: watch the finished video on a phone with the sound muted. If it still makes sense, the subtitles are doing their job. It takes two minutes. Try it on your latest post today and you will know whether yours hold up.