What a Transcription Service Can Do For Digital Marketing
There are more use cases for transcribed audio than you can even imagine! If you’re not already transcribing your video or audio recordings, we’ve outlined a slew of reasons to do so.
In this article
- What a Transcription Service Can Do For Digital Marketing
- A Brief History of Transcription
- Common Uses of Transcription
- Use Case for Transcription in Your Digital Marketing Strategy
- Online Visibility
- Accessibility
- Adaptability
- Ease of Use
- Translation
- Market Research
- Which Audio Files Work Best for Transcribing?
- Uncompressed Audio Files
- Lossy Audio Files
- Lossless Audio Files
- What Video Files are Best for Transcribing?
- How Much Should You Budget for Transcription?
- Transcription is Worth the Investment
Let us know in the comments if any of the below scenarios were on your radar, or if there are other innovative ways you’re harnessing transcriptions within your digital marketing strategy.
First, just in case transcription is new to you, we’ll start with a quick history recap on how it has been a critical part of society for as far back as anthropologists can tell.
If you’re already familiar with transcription and want to skips to the use cases, use these links:
Reasons to use transcription in your digital marketing strategy
Which audio files work best for transcribing?
What video files work best for transcribing?
How much should you budget for transcription?
A Brief History of Transcription
What started as hieroglyphics etched into stone has exploded into a universal part of almost every industry. But how did we get here?
Humanity’s first “transcribers” used images to document everything from major historical moments and advancements in medicine to even the most mundane parts of the day, which is partly how we came to know so much about life thousands of years ago.
But the mass production of texts still had a long way to go before it caught up with the written word.
The result? Highly trained—and highly paid—scribes who measured out pages, copied words onto those pages, and then assembled those pages into the bundles we call “books.”
The first printing presses introduced metal blocks, much like stamps, that could be rearranged to create different words and sentences. Then, typewriters—and later, word processors—helped bring that innovation into our homes and offices on a smaller, more convenient scale.
And as the Internet exploded in popularity, so did the demand to record and transfer information. “Scribes” were no longer relegated to specialized areas anymore; anyone with a computer could take up the challenge.
Common Uses of Transcription
When you think of transcription, what do you think of first? Many think of it in the context of the law and court proceedings. Court reporters take down every word during hearings then enter them into the legal record.
Medical transcriptionists similarly convert speech dictated by doctors and other health care workers into written text to be referred to later. Police officers and detectives, too, use it to keep accurate records.
But transcriptions don’t only figure into these high-stakes professions. Here are some other uses:
- Journalists, too, rely on it to ensure they get all of the details necessary while under pressure.
- Students transcribe lectures so they keep their focus on the professor, instead of note taking.
- Professionals across the board transcribe their meetings, too, so no detail or due date gets overlooked.
- Elearning modules are transcribed to accommodate the abilities of all learners engaging in the course.
- Content specialists and digital marketers are using transcription for:
- social media posts
- YouTube videos
- podcasts
We also see transcription at play when we’re reading subtitles in our everyday TV watching, whether it’s broadcasting your local station or a streaming service such as Netflix or Prime.
Use Case for Transcription in Your Digital Marketing Strategy
Online Visibility
Search engine optimization is among the most revered tenets of digital marketing because it works.
Think about it: When you upload a video to the web, your text is usually limited to a title and a meta description, which puts pressure on you to make it count. How can potential clients find you through search engines if your content can’t be easily indexed?
By attaching transcriptions to your audio or video content, you are creating a textual record loaded with SEO-friendly keywords—that is, if you’ve written an effective script.
Accessibility
Perhaps one of the biggest arguments for transcription is the accessibility it gives people with hearing impairments.
According to federal data analyzed by Gallaudet Research Institute, between two and four in every 1,000 people in the U.S. are “functionally deaf,” and the number of people with a severe hearing impairment is four to ten times higher.
Moreover, the number of people with some kind of hearing “trouble” falls between 37 and 140 per 1,000 people in the U.S., the institute found.
The takeaway? Hearing loss is more common than you think. And if a potential client does not feel accommodated, they’ll have no reason to enlist your services—much less have a means to do so.
Plus, if you find that transcribing your audio is harder than you expected, it may help you identify and correct issues with the sound quality—in turn, improving the experience and understandability for future users. That’s to say, it’s a worthwhile initiative to tackle if for no other reason than to do some quality assurance on your own content!
Adaptability
Transcribed multimedia content also lends itself to other creative uses. For example, you might decide to condense a lengthy video series or podcast into a slideshow presentation or blog post to expand upon in the future.
By transcribing your content, you’re making it easier to zero-in on noteworthy points and quotes that could make engaging graphics for social media or other publications later.
Why does this matter? You are giving yourself more ways to share your content across platforms.
While you may not be able to upload a full-length video or podcast episode to Instagram, for example, a transcription can help you create promotional materials or “teasers” that direct your audience back to the original source for more.
Ease of Use
Professional transcriptions don’t just benefit the hearing-impaired, either. A good transcription can help your audience get the most out of your content by making it easier—and faster —for them to find what they’re looking for.
And that goes for you, too! Identifying speakers and using timestamps can help both you and visitors jump directly to what stands out.
This comes especially in handy for you when editing soundbites or video montages on the fly. Instead of playing back hours of audio to find one specific quote, you can build an organized, easily searchable database from your transcriptions.
Translation
A true mark of success in any business is the demand for non-English translations. Why? It means you’re reaching a more diverse, geographically distributed audience.
Consider the viewer who may not click on your audio or video because they see it isn’t in their language.
That’s where a multilingual transcriber comes in. They can translate your content into another language, with attention to cultural differences (words don’t always have an English equivalent).
Market Research
Your audience isn’t the only one benefitting from transcribed audio, either. Consider how it can improve your workflow on the backend.
Picture this: You’ve spent weeks gathering customer feedback on what you’re doing well and what needs improvement. Just as with editing soundbites or montages, do you really want to scrub through all of that audio?
Of course not; you’ve got a business to run, after all. By transcribing the interviews from your focus groups, you can keep track of specific words and phrases. These can later be sorted and analyzed, helping you identify recurring themes to work on.
And, as we mentioned as the outset, even your meetings and conferences can be less daunting with transcriptions. Instead of a dry summary of key points, you’ll have a thorough record of all the details.
Which Audio Files Work Best for Transcribing?
If you’re thinking about hiring a transcriber, you need to know which audio files work best. The last thing you want is a corrupted file that can’t be transcribed!
Generally, the type of audio file doesn’t make a huge difference as long as the sound quality is clear. But if there are specific things you need to do to the audio—such as improving the quality post-production—your file type will start to matter.
Below are three types of audio files and the pros and cons of using each.
Uncompressed Audio Files
These include PCM and WAV. The draw of using uncompressed audio files is that they are converted without any processing—leaving the quality of your sound purely up to the quality of your microphone.
But this results in larger file sizes, which take longer to download and share and also occupy more space on your hard drive. We ran into this issue when we relaunched Vox Talk, our podcast on voice over industry news. The WordPress plugin we use to upload our podcast audio wouldn’t accept a wav file, and we learned on the fly that another audio file type was needed.
Lossy Audio Files
As the name suggests, you lose some of your data to compression when converting to this file type, which includes MP3, WMA, and AAC. However, this makes the file sizes smaller and easier to share. In our case, an MP3 was exactly what we needed to publish our podcasts.
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Though the difference between lossy and uncompressed audio is often hard to spot, you’ll likely feel most hindered by this file type if you need to enhance the quality of the sound due to background noise or other interference.
Lossless Audio Files
These could be considered the “happy medium” between uncompressed and lossy audio files. They allow you to reduce the size of your file without losing any of the quality to compression.
But lossless audio files—which include FLAC, WMA, and ALC—are among the least used, which could lend itself to compatibility issues if your transcriber doesn’t have the software to support it.
What Video Files are Best for Transcribing?
In general, video files are larger than audio files, so file compression and sound equipment will be the biggest factors affecting your sound quality.
For transcribing videos, MP4, FLV, or AVI will usually do the trick. iPhone videos, which are usually recorded in QuickTime MOV files, will also work.
Most digital cameras record video in MOV, MP4, or FLV formats, though higher-end cameras may produce different formats that need to be professionally processed and converted before they can be uploaded.
Keep in mind that most cameras are equipped with subpar microphones, though. If you want the clearest sound, it may be smart to invest in additional microphones—or, at the very least— ensure that the microphone on the camera isn’t blocked or covered when you record your video.
How Much Should You Budget for Transcription?
Not all audio is created equal. When it comes to transcription services, the cost depends on a variety of factors, like the number of speakers, the quality of the sound, and other special requests and accommodations, like translation into another language.
That said, transcription services that can be found online in the U.S. range from $1 to $3 per audio minute, or $90 to $180 per audio hour. With the rise of artificial intelligence, you may be wondering why that rate sounds so costly.
The answer is: While AI may seem like the more cost-effective option, it isn’t always the most accurate. More often than not, a trained human ear can help distinguish between similar voices, make out unclear words, and punctuate your transcriptions appropriately.
If you decide to go the AI route, you’ll likely have to compare the audio to the transcription and correct errors. Hiring a freelance transcription specialist will save you that extra step and ensure the highest quality of work.
Transcription is Worth the Investment
Professionally transcribing your multimedia content isn’t just a smart business move anymore; it’s essential. Ready to take your business to the next level and reach new audiences? It may be time to find the right transcription service for you.The perfect transcriber is waiting to connect with you! Sign up for free and post your freelance transcription specialist job listings today.
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