Why you need translation for your video content: Five key reasons

Video content has become one of the most engaging and effective marketing tools today, delivering returns that exceed expectations. According to Cisco (Cisco), by 2025, 80% of global Internet traffic will come from video content. While you may already be using video for marketing or planning to use it to enhance your brand, do you know how to maximize the effectiveness of your video content? A simple yet effective way is to provide professional language translation for your videos.

Although English remains the dominant global language, the diversity of online languages continues to increase. In fact, 60% of global YouTube video views come from non-English speaking users. Considering that 55% of the world’s Internet content is written in English, but only about a quarter of the world’s Internet users are English speakers, this means that video content that relies solely on English publishing may miss out on a large number of potential viewers. When publishing videos on platforms such as YouTube, Douyin, and Kuaishou, it is crucial to add professional subtitle translations.

Here are five key reasons why you need to translate your video content:

1. Expand audience coverage

The multilingual support of video platforms such as YouTube, Douyin and Kuaishou allows your videos to reach 95% of the global audience. Studies show that if you only publish videos in English, you may miss 60% of your potential audience. Especially on short video platforms such as TikTok, Douyin and Kuaishou, the proportion of non-English users has surged, and overseas users of these platforms have a strong demand for local language content. If you don't translate your video content, you will miss the opportunity to interact with these foreign users, thereby limiting your audience base.

For example, Douyin and Kuaishou have rapidly emerged in China and overseas markets, attracting user groups from different languages, cultures and interests. Providing translated and localized content for these platforms can help you reach a wider audience, increasing interaction and exposure. TikTok (International version of Douyin) has an increasing number of users in Southeast Asia, Europe and the Americas. Translating subtitles and content will help you better reach audiences in these regions and further expand your brand influence.

2. Improve SEO effect

In addition to expanding your audience, translating video subtitles can provide significant search engine optimization (SEO) benefits. Translating video content into different languages helps search engines crawl the subtitle text, which in turn improves the video's ranking in search engines.

For example, if your video is embedded on your website and needs to be presented for educational purposes, finding a professional translation company to translate your video content into multiple languages can create additional pages for your website and broaden the reach of your content. Most importantly, using professional translations instead of automated translations ensures that your website content will not be penalized by Google for duplication.

In addition, short video platforms such as TikTok and Douyin also have their own search engines, which rely on tags, descriptions and subtitles within the platform to help users find content they are interested in. Therefore, translating subtitles not only helps improve search rankings on YouTube and Google, but also increases exposure and interaction on short video platforms.

3. Make your brand stand out

Breaking through language barriers is an effective way to differentiate your brand from the competition. Most companies don’t consider providing multilingual support when releasing promotional videos, which means that many potential viewers can’t resonate with your videos. By translating subtitles, you are able to reach markets that your competitors don’t reach, which can almost be considered a “competitive advantage” for you.

In addition, if you plan to expand overseas markets, providing video content in local languages is key to winning new customers. Research shows that 72% of consumers prefer to stay longer on websites in their native language, and 72% of consumers are more inclined to buy products that provide local language information. On platforms such as TikTok and Douyin, where user groups come from different countries and cultures, providing localized video content will help brands gain a foothold in the global market.

4. Improve audience interaction and retention

Translating your videos into your audience’s native language will significantly increase their engagement rates. While the visual content of the video itself typically does not need to be translated, well-translated subtitles can encourage foreign language users to engage in comments and motivate them to share the video on social platforms, thereby broadening the audience.

Especially on platforms such as TikTok and Douyin, user interaction and sharing directly affect the spread of videos. By translating subtitles, foreign language users can not only understand the video content, but also participate more actively in discussions and sharing, thereby improving the interactivity of the video and audience retention, thereby enhancing brand exposure.

5. Engage your audience even in a silent environment

Research shows that about 14% of YouTube users watch videos while working, and many people watch in a quiet environment, so they choose silent mode. According to Ofcom data, 80% of viewers turn on subtitles when watching videos. Subtitles can not only avoid noise interference, but also increase the interaction rate of viewers, especially for those whose native language is not English.

For short video platforms such as Douyin and TikTok, many users also choose silent mode when watching videos in public places, so subtitles become the key to conveying information. Translation and subtitles can not only help viewers understand the content, but also enhance interactivity, especially for those who do not understand the original language of the video.

Conclusion

In video marketing, providing multilingual translated video content can not only help you break through language barriers, but also enhance your brand’s global influence, increase audience interaction and engagement, and ultimately expand your market coverage. Translating video subtitles will enable you to reach more audiences around the world, improve SEO results, and help your brand succeed in the international market.

If you would like professional translation services for your video content, Arrow Translation will provide you with comprehensive support to ensure your video is a global success.

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