Most short videos are watched with the sound off, so captions are not decoration. They are part of how the video communicates. A few details make the difference.
Keep lines short. One to three words at a time, or one short phrase per screen, is easier to read than a full sentence.
Stay inside the safe area. Reels, Shorts and TikTok all cover parts of the frame with buttons and text. Keep captions in the middle band, away from the bottom edge and the right side.
Contrast first, style second. White text with a solid outline or a soft shadow works on almost any background. Fancy fonts that are hard to read at phone size cost you viewers.
Highlight, don't decorate. Colour the one word that carries the meaning. If every word animates, nothing stands out.
Check the timing. Captions that arrive a beat late feel wrong. Sync them to speech, then watch the video once with the sound off.
Proofread. Auto-captions get names, product terms and numbers wrong. Fix them by hand.
Use a template. Pick one caption style per brand and keep it, so a batch of videos looks consistent.
I wrote a longer guide here: Captions for short-form video.
Top comments (0)