How to Subtitle Instagram Videos and Other Social Media Content

Regularly posting videos online via social media has been a primary source of advertising for many companies for a long time. Whilst YouTube allows an SRT to be simply uploaded alongside your video, Instagram and Twitter content can be trickier to subtitle and requires subtitles to be burned in. Here we’ll run through some quick steps on how to Subtitle Instagram Videos. 

Step By Step Guide to Subtitle Instagram Videos

Instagram is a great site in terms of visually representing yourself or your business, but it is predominantly visual. It’s a site where many people browse online remotely using handheld devices which are usually placed conveniently on ‘mute’. This is the reason why it’s so important to burn subtitles into your videos. When watching videos on a phone, a subtitled video will almost always win a bigger audience than one without subtitles as viewers can watch videos inconspicuously, in silence.

Step 1: Transcribe Instagram Video

Prior to creating subtitles for Instagram, the first step is to make sure your video has an accurate transcription. Not only should your video script read well grammatically, it should be free from any spelling mistakes and should also use spelling conventions applicable to the target audience, e.g. English spellings versus US.

Step 2: Subtitle Instagram Video

Once you have your text ready, you will need to time that text to display in sync with your video. This requires both professional software and/or a lot of patience. As well as timing, you will need to look at where you split your subtitle lines. When subtitling for Instagram, it’s important to assess whether there is space within the narrow 9×16 display for viewers to read your full subtitle. You should also ensure subtitles are onscreen long enough for a viewer to easily digest what is being said.

Once you have exported an SRT file, it can be uploaded and used on the Instagram site to display on your video in a default style.

Step 3: Burn In and Style Instagram Subtitles

Instagram is a visual based site. The content that works best is content that is visually interesting and looks professional. For Instagram, we recommend burning in subtitles (aka encoding). Especially with the long, narrow format of most Instagram content, subtitles can look awkward, especially if they are too long in terms of number of characters to fit on that skinny screen. Burning in means not only will your subtitles fit neatly on the screen (with time enough for viewers to read them!) but it also means that you have absolute free reign over how they look.

When burning in Instagram subtitles, you can choose font styles, text size, transparency filters, colours and the way the subtitles transition (eg. Pop on, fade on, roll-up). Adding extra care and attention to burning subtitles for Instagram can enhance the experience of watching your videos. Subtitles should complement a video without distracting from it. They should be a part of the viewing experience and styling can make a huge difference in that.

Step 4: Translating Instagram Videos

Once your SRT subtitles are ready and/or you have burned in your subtitles to display perfectly on your videos, it’s time to consider Instagram translation. Translating online content can massively open up your target audience and is well worth the time and cost involved.

So there you have it, a quick guide on how to subtitle Instagram videos. If you like to get you social media videos subtitles or translated why not click the button below to get your quote today.