We’ve all been there: You’re browsing your For You page with your phone on silent when a video of someone talking pops up. You want to know what they say, but there are no signatures to read. And since your headphones aren’t in range, you keep scrolling.
If you are a social media creator or marketer, this is not the experience you want your followers to have. To grab people’s attention, your content needs to be accessible to all audiences. This is where automatic TikTok captions come into play.
TikTok is the first to introduce automatic captioning for deaf and hard of hearing people. But closed captioning can and should be used as part of a larger initiative to create a better user experience for everyone on TikTok.
To help you get started, here’s how and why to add captions to your TikTok videos as a creator or viewer.
What are TikTok auto captions?
TikTok autotitles are subtitles that are automatically generated and displayed on the video so that the user can read the audio transcription.
Auto captions make your videos more accessible and inclusive, allowing users to read or listen to the content. This is useful not only for people who are deaf or hard of hearing, but also for users who watch videos with the sound turned off.
Creators can enable this feature during the content creation process and even edit captions for accuracy before publishing. Viewers can also turn subtitles on or off. Let’s see how to set up this feature for both cases.
How to Use Automatic TikTok Captions
Turning on subtitles on TikTok is pretty easy, whether you’re a creator or a viewer. Here are the steps for both.
Using TikTok Subtitles as a Creator
Luckily for busy social media creators and managers, TikTok’s auto captioning feature makes it easy to add and edit subtitles during the content creation process. Here’s how:
1. When uploading a video, click the Captions button on the right side of the screen.
TikTok will automatically transcribe any sound into a video. If you want to reduce the amount of text you have to edit, do your best to upload videos with clear speech and minimal background noise.
2. Once TikTok generates your signature, check its accuracy. Did he pick up the background voices? Do you see too many filler words that you want to remove?
Do not worry. You can click on the pencil icon to edit the automatically generated subtitles.
3. Click Save when you’re done editing and your captions are ready to display.
Using TikTok Subtitles as a Viewer
Enabling subtitles on TikTok isn’t just for creators. As a viewer, you also have the option to watch videos with subtitles enabled or disabled. To get started, follow these steps:
1. If you want subtitles to appear automatically, first make sure that the auto-subtitle feature is enabled on your account.
To do this, go to “Settings and Privacy”and click on the “Accessibility”tab. Here you will see the option “Always show automatically generated captions”. Make sure the button is enabled.
With this feature enabled, you don’t need to take any extra steps to see subtitles in TikTok videos created with automatic subtitles. But what if you’re watching a video and suddenly change your mind about seeing subtitles? Or what if the subtitles cover part of the video you want to watch?
Don’t worry – even with this feature enabled, you still have the option to turn off subtitles for individual TikTok videos.
2. To disable TikTok subtitles, tap the subtitles of the video you are watching. An option to “hide captions”will appear.
3. If you want to turn subtitles back on, just click the subtitle button and they will reappear.
Why are automatic TikTok captions important?
First of all, TikTok auto captions make your videos more accessible to a wide variety of audiences. And making your social media content inclusive is a standard that all marketers should practice.
Are you required to add subtitles to your videos? Technically no. But skipping this step could mean you’re excluding an audience that would otherwise enjoy and engage with your content. If you want more people to watch your TikTok videos, make the browsing experience as easy and enjoyable as possible by adding captions.
In addition to accessibility, subtitles help to get to know users where they are. Most people watch videos with the sound muted, whether that’s by default or for privacy reasons. So it’s safe to assume that when your video appears on someone’s “For You”page, they may be watching in silent mode and will keep scrolling if they don’t immediately understand the context. To keep people interested and get more views, your videos need subtitles.
Plus, as a busy social media manager, anything that can save you time is a game changer. Automatic subtitles take on some of the work of editing your TikTok videos. And by spending less time editing, you can focus on the fun parts of the process, like creating, scheduling, and interacting with subscribers. To save even more time, use a platform like Hootsuite to schedule and manage your content in one place.
Frequently Asked Questions About TikTok Auto Signatures
What does “auto-generated captions”mean in TikTok?
TikTok auto-generated captions are subtitles that are transcribed from audio and displayed on your video.
How to enable automatic subtitles in TikTok?
To turn on TikTok’s autocaptions feature, go to Settings & Privacy and tap on the Accessibility tab. Enable the Always show automatically generated captions option.
When should you use subtitles in your videos?
Short answer? Always. But if you want to narrow it down to start with, here are a few video formats that include a lot of conversation and would benefit from automatic subtitles:
- Tutorial or instructional video
- Q&A and interview-style videos
- Videos a day in the life
- Explainer videos
How to fix auto captions on TikTok?
Creators can fix auto-generated TikTok captions during the creation process. After the signature is automatically generated, tap the pencil icon to edit it.
How to turn off subtitles on TikTok?
In the Settings & Privacy section, tap the Accessibility tab and turn off the “Always show auto-generated captions”option. You can also turn off subtitles for individual videos by tapping closed captions and selecting “hide subtitles”.