One of the biggest recent changes in the video industry is how important it is to ensure that your videos are understood without sound.
A whopping 85% of Facebook videos are watched without sound!
We produce a variety of promo and broadcast videos that also require social edit formats too, to support the main campaign online. Quite often we are asked to add subtitles to an edit and we are more than happy to help out but did you know that you can actually do it yourself? So, here is a little guide on how you can do just that.
Adding Facebook subtitles
Add Captions to Videos Previously Posted
- Select the video you intend to add subtitles to.
- Head to the top right-hand corner to the 3 dots icon and select edit video.
- Select Subtitles and then captions highlighted below on the right-hand side.
- Then select English Auto-generated. To check the wording select the pencil icon. From here an editing box will appear where you can replace words and re-time the subtitles. See below.
- Save draft. See the results here: https://www.facebook.com/soupcreative/videos/1576341989098303/
- On a desk top simply select the settings icon and turn on captions.
- On your phone, a cc icon will appear in the top right-hand corner. If you select default the captions will automatically appear when your audio is off and appear when your audio is turned on. If you select English captions will remain on regardless of whether your audio is switch on or off.
Adding subtitles to Facebook Paid Video Ads
- Go to Power Editor.
- Click Ads.
- Choose the campaign and ad set you want your ad to go in. Give your ad a name and click Create.
- A workspace should appear. In the Create Ad section, fill in the details of your ad. Below Video click Select Video.
- In the window that appears, click Upload Video. Once your video has finished uploading, click Select.
- Below Video Captions, you’ll see a drop-down that says Generate Automatically. If you don’t want to choose Generate Automatically, click the drop-down. In the drop-down menu, you’ll be able to choose Upload SRT File to add captions using an SRT file or No Captions if you don’t want to include captions on your video.
- If you’ve selected Generate Automatically, you’ll see two options: ‘Review manually before they are added’ or ‘Let Facebook review for accuracy and add automatically’. If you don’t make a selection, ‘Review manually before they are added’ will be chosen by default.
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- If you select Review manually before they are added, you’ll have a few options:
- Option 1: Once your captions are ready to be reviewed, you can click Review in the grey box next to Video Captions Ready for Review. A window will appear. You’ll be able to edit the text in your captions, edit the length of time each caption appears on screen or add an additional line of captions if time permits. Once you’re done, you can either click Save Draft or Apply Caption. If you click Save Draft, your work will be saved and you can come back later to make additional changes. If you click Apply Caption, your captions will be added to your video.
- Option 2: In the Video Captions Ready for Review section, you’ll also see an option to Share your captions. When you click Share, a window will appear. In that window, copy the URL to send your video’s captions to anyone who needs to review them and make sure the
is blue. When your reviewer opens the URL, they’ll see the video caption editor and will be able to click Save Draft or Apply Caption. Keep in mind that the link will expire after 72 hours. If the link expires before the other person is able to review the captions, you can share your captions again. 
- If you shared the URL for your captions with someone but would like to take away their access, click Share in the Video Captions Ready for Review section. In the window that appears, click
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