It’s a staggering number.
85% of all Facebook users view their feed with no sound. That’s right. No audio. No music. Nothing. Think about it though. When you’re scrolling through your Facebook feed while watching TV or standing in line at the grocery story, you most likely have your phone on mute – no audio. Unfortunately, that means a lot of viewers will skip past your video. Don’t worry. It’s not the way you look. But watching a “talking head” with no audio to go with it is … well, kinda boring.
Fortunately, there are a few things that you can do to improve the likelihood of someone watching your video on Facebook, even if the sound is off.
- Use subtitles. Facebook makes this pretty easy. When you upload your video, Step 2 of the process allows you to create subtitles … that is, have Facebook create them for you. You tell it what language and then it does a pretty good job of interpreting your rambling and not only creates the subtitles but it breaks them up and places them into their right places on your video. You can fine tune the subtitles and correct those words that it didn’t quite get.
- Add visual cues. If it’s important that there should be sound, let people know … point to something or place a graphic on the video to let them know to use sound.
- Knowing that 85% of your viewers will be watching with sound, make sure that you aren’t just a “talking head” but that you move around, bring in some props, and do other things to keep your video visually appealing.
In the end, your audience will be grateful that you took the time to make it so they can understand your video post while they’re waiting for car in front of them at the drive through.
