How to add Captions to Reels to Hook your audience!13 min read

We all know how everyone is hooked to Instagram Reels nowadays.

In fact, we have heard the “Instagram is used by 2 billion monthly users wolrdwide” stat and the “Reels receive more engagement than other IG posts” stat more than James Bond says…

Many renowned brands and content creators utilize Instagram Reels like “business cards” and leverage its popularity.

To ensure that they achieve maximized engagement and increase their chances of becoming viral through reels, they use different techniques. And one of the simplest techniques they use is adding captions to their reel.

Wondering how captions increase a Reel’s engagement?

Reels are short-form videos that keep playing in a loop. People watching may tend to get confused by the dialogues, background audio, etc. Captions will help hold the viewers’ attention and help them understand the content better.
Many users watch Reels on mute. If you share important information in your video, you wouldn’t want this “group-on-mute” to miss out, right? So, adding those captions is beneficial!
Reels are meant to be enjoyed by all, irrespective of their challenges. Subtitles are a huge help to those with auditory challenges.

Now that you know why even the Instagram biggies believe in subtitles, I am sure you would want to try out the same strategy in your videos and see the difference.

So, here are two easy ways by which you can add captions to your Instagram Reels.

How to add captions to reels through IG’s in-built automatic captioning feature
How to add captions to reels using a Free online Subtitle Generator app

If you are someone who is out of time and will just be happy with limited customization, then you can create your captions using the captioning feature available with Instagram itself.

But if you are someone who wants elaborate customization and wants to make their captioned videos look uniquely cool, then you can use the Free subtitle generator app we have recommended.

For the purpose of this article, I will use a popular reel video from our IG feed to teach you how to add captions.

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A post shared by Animaker (@animakerhq)

Without further delays, let’s jump right into learning how to add captions to your Instagram reel video through the in-built feature.

1. How to add captions to reels through IG’s in-built automatic captioning feature

Adding subtitles or captions would make the Reel more understandable and helpful for the viewer.

To add subtitles to Reels using the built-in captioning feature, follow the steps below:

Step 1: Drafting a Reel
Step 2: Uploading a Video
Step 3: Adding Captions to the Reel

Step 1: Drafting a Reel:

Log in to your profile and click on the plus (+) icon on top to add a new post. Under the “Create” section, select ‘Reel.’

Step 2: Uploading a Video

This opens the camera. You can record the video using the camera or select a pre-made video to upload as the reel. Here, I select a pre-made video and click on ‘Add.’

Step 3: Adding Captions to the Reel

Once the video is uploaded, click on the ‘Stickers’ option on top. This opens a huge list of stickers.

Here, select the “Captions” sticker. Selecting this option makes Instagram automatically transcribe the audio and generate subtitles.

The transcription can take quite a while,

But once it is done, here’s what the reel with the subtitles looks like!

That was very easy, wasn’t it?

Now, let’s jump to the next method of adding subtitles to Instagram reel.

2. How to add captions to reels using a Free online Subtitle Generator app

Though the built-in feature is very easy to use, there are many situations where the subtitles generated by the app may be erroneous. Like this…

This might be caused due to bad pronunciation or overlap of background music with the dialogues, making the subtitle generator interpret the dialogues wrong.

There are a number of generators out there that do the job. But as always, we are particular on presenting you with the best.

So for this, we will be using a tool called Animaker. Animaker is an online video-making platform that helps users create awesome videos in a matter of minutes. The vast library of Animaker is enriched with 150+ animated characters, 70K+ icons, 30K+ music tracks, 100M+ stock images and videos, etc.; you name it, you can add it! In short, you will be left spoilt for choice!

Recently, Animaker has developed the ultimate Subtitle Generator to help you add the perfect subtitles and avoid embarrassing situations, as in the GIF above. This AI-powered tool helps you generate subtitles that are 99% accurate.

Where’s the missing 1%, do you ask? Well, the Subtitle maker highlights parts of the generated subtitles that might be an error, giving you the option to judge whether they are correct.

This makes it easy for you to identify and correct errors if necessary, rather than having to scout for mistakes by checking the subtitles line by line.

Animaker’s Subtitle Generator helps you add subtitles to your videos through three different methods:

a. Auto-subtitles – to generate subtitles automatically

b. Manual subtitles – to type them out manually

c. Upload subtitles – to upload a subtitle file and sync it with your video

Without any further ado, let’s see how to add subtitles using these three methods one by one.

a. Add captions to Instagram reel using the Auto-subtitle feature.

As the name clearly suggests, this feature is to generate subtitles automatically. The AI-powered tool does the magic of recognizing the audio and converting it into captions.

To auto-generate subtitles using Animaker’s AI-powered Subtitle Generator, use the steps below:

Step 1: Creating a new project

Step 2: Uploading a video

Step 3: Auto-generating Subtitles

Step 4: Formatting the generated subtitles

Step 5: Downloading the Video

Now, let’s jump right in!

Step 1: Creating a new project

Signup/Login to Animaker. Once you log in, you will be taken to the dashboard.

Here, select the right arrow in the create button. This lists a number of create options. Select the “Create subtitle” option.

Step 2: Uploading a video

This opens a new project. First, you must select the video for which subtitles need to be generated. You can either upload the video from your PC/ choose a video you have exported from Animaker/ choose a video you have uploaded previously.

Since I have the video in hand, I am going to select the first option. To do the same, click on the “Upload your file” button and select the video from your file manager.

The video is uploaded. Before we learn how to auto-generate subtitles for this video, let’s quickly learn what the interface of Animaker’s Subtitle Maker looks like.

On the left is the library with the Subtitle, Settings, and Translation Tabs.
On the top is the menu with options to rename, preview, share, and download the video.
In the center is the workspace. This is where you upload your video.
On the bottom is the timeline. You can see the uploaded video on the timeline below.

Step 3: Auto-generating Subtitles

Now, let’s select the “Auto Subtitle” option. Tadaaa! In a few seconds, the subtitles are ready! You can see how the audio has been transcribed, and the subtitles have been generated perfectly for the right durations, as in the image below.

Simply click on the text or the duration to edit them.

Merge Text:

If you feel that some lines need to be displayed together, select the “Merge Text” option. After selecting, notice how the subtitle lines and their duration are combined in the Subtitles pane. Apart from this, you can also see the lines getting combined both in the workspace and in the timeline.

Add new Subtitle Line:

If you want to add a new line, click on the “Add new subtitle line” option. Doing this adds a new line for a two-second duration by default. If you want to, you can edit the duration by clicking on it and typing, and later enter the subtitle for that duration.

Step 4: Formatting the generated subtitles

Now, let’s see how to edit the format of these subtitles. Go to the Settings tab. Here, you can change the subtitle’s font style, size, color, alignment, letter, spacing, etc. Choose from the 150+ font styles available and make your subtitle look absolutely amazing.

The best part is, you don’t have to get your hands dirty, trying to carve the captions perfectly. There are 15 premade text styles that you can apply to your subtitles, making it look cool and professional.

Step 5: Downloading the Video

Once you are done doing all the edits, you can download it by clicking on the download button.

That’s it! That’s how Animaker’s AI-Powered Auto subtitle generator works!

Now, let’s move on to the next section, adding subtitles to your video manually!

b. Add subtitles to Instagram reel using the Manual Subtitles feature

This feature is mainly for perfectionists who are satisfied ONLY if THEY do the work. They can’t trust even AI to do the job, because they feel like…

So, for all those perfect nitwits out there, here’s how you can add subtitles to your Instagram reels ALL BY YOURSELF:

Step 1: Creating a new project

Step 2: Uploading a video

Step 3: Entering the Subtitles Manually

Step 4: Formatting the generated subtitles

Step 5: Downloading the Video

Now, let’s jump right in!