How to add captions to your Instagram reels & stand out

Social Media!

When you hear the term ‘Social Media’ it is often associated with different things. For some, it’s a source of entertainment. For others, it’s a platform for creativity & self-expression. And for business owners & entrepreneurs, it’s a platform for professional growth and business promotion.

Social Media Platforms have become one of the top sources for Acquiring customers & generating leads for businesses. Instagram as a platform is a great way to expand your business reach, online presence, and visibility, as it has over a billion users.

Not just that, Instagram is an excellent platform for advertising everything. You can find all kinds of industries like Food, Fashion, Travel, Technology, Gaming, and much more under a single roof.

For Marketers, Instagram is a gold mine as it has the highest engagement rate compared to any other social media platform in the world. Additionally, Studies report that Video posts on Instagram receive 2x engagement rates compared to any other post type.

Branded content on Instagram helps to drive potential shoppers to your product or service. People have the tendency to use Instagram as a medium to see the trending product, research it, and decide whether or not to purchase it.

Reasons why Captions are important for your Instagram reels & posts

Did you know videos without sound get even more views? A survey conducted by Verizon Media states that 92% of consumers watch videos with the sound off, and 50% rely on the captions.

So, if you want to get the most out of your Instagram reels, captioning Instagram reels is the best way. It goes beyond the concept of best practice and becomes a practical way to improve engagement & conversion rates. Additionally, it becomes accessible even for those with hearing defects.

Now, let’s see how to caption your Instagram videos to maximize the potential of your Social Media Posts.

 

How to add Captions to Instagram reels 

In the mid of 2021, Instagram released the Auto caption feature that has made it simple for the content creators and businesses. This features auto captions in 17 languages including English, Italian, German, Turkish, Thai, Russian, Tagalog, Urdu, Hindi, Malay, Indonesian and Japanese. Instagram also mentioned it will be rolling the support for more languages in the upcoming days.

Here’s how you can add caption to your Instagram Reels and stories - 

 

Step 1: Open Instagram and go to the reels section. Here, you can record a new video or add one from your camera roll.

 

Step 2: Once you have recorded or added a video from your camera roll, tap on the sticker icon.

 

Step 3: Select the captions sticker.

 

Step 4: Once you select the captions sticker, it will transcribe the audio, and the message “Transcribing Audio…” will appear on the screen. This will take anywhere between a minute or two, depending on how long your reel is.

 

Step 5: Once the process is complete, be sure to review the captions by tapping on the text on your screen. The automatic caption feature on Instagram is a quick way of adding captions to your videos, and since it is automatic, there are chances for errors.

 

Step 6: Customize your font & animations by clicking on the captions and choosing across the available options. In total, there are four different fonts & animations that are paired together.

 

It’s as simple as that. This way, you can easily add captions to reels.

 

How to step up your caption game with professional-looking subtitles?

While this feature might be simple and handy, it also has its disadvantages. If you are a prominent brand that is looking to caption its Instagram reels, this might not look professional and stand out from the crowd.

This is where online tools like Subtitle maker comes into action.

Just like how Instagram automatically transcribes your video and add captions to your video, there are a dozen of tools you can use for the same purpose.

To make things easy for you, we have chosen the best tool of ‘em all to turn Instagram’s boring captions into this -

Step 1: Head over to Animaker.com and signup for a free account.

 Step 2: Once you signup, head over to the dashboard and, click on Create & click on Create Subtitle

Step 3: In the Subtitle Maker dashboard, there will be a new popup where you can upload your video from your computer or select a video from the past exports, or select one from your library.

 Step 4: Once you have imported your to Subtitle maker, there will be three options for you to choose from -

 

Auto subtitle - AI-powered subtitle maker will transcribe your video in a few seconds and add subtitles to your video.

 

Manual subtitle - Manually add subtitles and adjust the timestamps between each subtitle.

 

Add a subtitle file - This option lets you upload your own subtitle files to the subtitle maker directly. Currently, it supports .srt , .ass , & .vtt formats.

Step 5: For this tutorial, we will use the Auto Subtitle feature.

Step 6: Once you click on it, the process will begin, and automatically, subtitles will be added to your video.

Step 7: Once the process is over, the subtitles will be automatically added to your video. On the left, you’ll be able to see the subtitles with their timestamps added automatically to your Instagram reel video. That’s it; you’re done!

Wasn’t that amazing? Within a few seconds, you added subtitles to your videos automatically. Here are a few ways you can enhance your Instagram video with these extra steps -

1. Manually go through your subtitle to find errors. Since this is done automatically, there are chances for spelling errors or chances of words being omitted. You can edit the subtitles by just clicking on them.

2. Stay unique by customizing your subtitle style by Settings > Text Style. Here you can choose from 15 pre-designed subtitle styles or make your own design with the customizer on top. You can customize your font, font size, font background, font alignment, and lots of other customizations to make it stand out.

3. If you want to geotarget your Instagram reels to audiences around the world, you can easily translate your subtitles to 100+ languages in a single click. To do this, head over to the Translation option in the menu and click on Add a new language. There, you can choose from over 100+ languages and click on Translate.

With these options and customizability, your Instagram reels’ engagement rates can have a huge impact. This, combined with quality content, improves your discoverability rate and grows your Instagram reach organically.

 

What are you waiting for, head over to Animaker’s Subtitle Generator and generate your own subtitles now!