Captions
Captions are the on-screen text of what is being said in a video clip, either burned into the video or added as a subtitle track. For podcast clips they are usually styled and burned in so the words appear word-by-word as the speaker talks.
For example, a LinkedIn clip plays silently in a scrolling feed but is still fully understood because the speaker's words appear as bold, animated captions on screen.
Why it matters: most social video is watched on mute, so captions are what make a B2B podcast clip comprehensible in the feed, without them, a silent autoplay clip is skipped before a word is heard.
Captions are non-negotiable on every social video, accurate, well-timed, and styled so they stay readable on a small muted screen.
- Shipping clips with no captions and losing the majority who watch on mute.
- Relying on raw auto-captions without correcting names, jargon, and errors.
- Styling captions so small or busy they are unreadable on a phone.
What are captions?
Captions are the on-screen text of what is being said in a video clip, either burned into the video or added as a subtitle track. For podcast clips they are usually styled and burned in so the words appear word-by-word as the speaker talks.
Why do podcast clips need captions?
A large share of social video is watched without sound. Captions let the clip land while muted, which directly affects how many people stop, watch, and understand it.
What is the difference between captions and a transcript?
Captions are timed text shown on a video clip; a transcript is the full written text of an episode used on the episode page for reading and SEO. Both come from the same source audio.