How to Enable and Edit Automatic Closed Captions for YouTube Videos (Full Transcript)

Speaker 1: Did you know that 85% of social media videos are watched on mute? For example, sometimes I watch YouTube videos with the sound turned off while watching TV or listening to music. If you add closed captions to your video, people that are hard of hearing or have the sound turned off can understand your content by reading the captions on the video. Here's how to quickly enable and edit automatic closed captions for YouTube videos. All these videos contain closed captions because they have a CC under the video, except for this video, which doesn't have closed captions. If I click on the video, then click CC under the video, you'll show the auto-generated captions under the video. On mobile, you tap CC to view the captions on the video. If you want to turn them off, tap CC again. Now you won't see any captions on the video. Often these captions are not accurate, so I want to show you how to edit these auto-generated captions. Click on the content tab in YouTube Studio, then select the video you wish to add closed captions to, or enter the title in the search box to find it. Click on subtitles. Here's the automated transcript created by YouTube. Click duplicate and edit. Here's the automated transcription from YouTube. As you can see, it's not entirely accurate. You can play the video, then edit the text as the video is playing. Alternatively, click edit timings. It'll show the captions with a timestamp for your video. YouTube does a good job of syncing the captions with the audio from your video. All you have to do now is play the video, then edit the captions. I've capitalized my sentence and added a question mark. Now you can just quickly edit your captions as you play your video. If you want to remove a caption, place your cursor in the box, then click the trash icon that says remove caption line. Your captions will appear on the video as you play it, and they'll also appear down here. You can also check the pause box while you're typing. If you want to enter your subtitles faster with keyboard shortcuts, click keyboard shortcuts. When editing your captions, you can pause or play the video, add a previous subtitle, add the next subtitle, send backwards by five seconds, or send forwards by five seconds using these keys on your keyboard. After you've edited all your captions, click publish. Now you'll see your edited transcription at the top and the auto-generated one from YouTube at the bottom. Now if I click CC at the bottom of the video, it says subtitles and closed captions, then play the video, those closed captions will appear at the bottom of the video. Now you'll also see that YouTube has added CC at the bottom of the video, which means closed captions are available for that video. Here are four main reasons to add closed captions to YouTube videos. If 85% of people watching videos on social media platforms have mute turned on, it's highly likely that some of your target audience is doing the same. They may be watching your videos while working out the gym, or perhaps are watching your videos at work without the boss knowing because they have the sound turned off. Here's how to turn on or off the default caption setting for YouTube channel. Click on your profile picture, click on settings, click on playback and performance, check always show captions and check include auto-generate captions when available. This option turns automatic captions on or off for videos that don't have captions added. Number two, it helps your videos get discovered in YouTube and Google search. This is because captions help the algorithm understand what your video content is all about. Number three, increase watch time. If a viewer can't understand or can't hear what you're saying in the video, but can read the captions under your video, they'll keep watching the video, leading to increased watch time. When you get a high audience retention on YouTube video, it triggers YouTube algorithm to suggest your videos to a wider audience. Number four, create a blog post from the transcript. Click the three dots next to options, click the arrow next to download, click on .srt. Here's a transcript containing the timestamps and the text of your video. If you just want to post the text of your video content, remove the timestamps. If you're on a Mac, select the text edit file, then delete the timestamps. I also recommend embedding your video in the blog post to help you get discovered in Google and YouTube. Do you want to reach even more people? Watch this video on the screen right now titled, do this trick to keep them watching and get more views. You'll be glad you did.