Video is nothing new, but these days it’s what everyone is using in social media. Social media is blowing up with video content thanks to popular apps like Periscope (live broadcasting) and Facebook Live to name a few. While video is great for delivering your content you still need that written piece for SEO.
**Please note: This may not work on every video & if you are having issues with the code, it is very sensitive, click “YouTube Code.”
You see, video is just part of the equation. You need one part video and one part copy to equal traffic to your website (assuming you have good content and keywords). Who has time though to not only shoot the video but edit it and write copy for the blog post?
Most people either choose not to do any of it because of the time required or they outsource some of the process. While editing is a popular part to outsource, many are starting to learn that they need to outsource the transcription part. Think about it. You already said what you wanted to in the video so why would you write it all over? All you need to do is take the transcription from that video, edit it, and post it as your copy. People are asking and talking more about how they can transcribe their videos without having to pay someone a fortune. Sure, you can try using dictation on your iPhone to try and record the audio from your video on the computer, but it doesn’t work as well as you thought it would – trust me I’ve tried. You could outsource this like many are doing using popular sites like Fiverr or Upwork which if you just don’t want to spend the time doing it. If however, you are finding that you have some extra time and are wanting to do it yourself I have the secret to transcribing your own videos. Here’s what you will need:
- A video file
- YouTube account
- Chrome browser
- Chrome Developer tools if you don’t have it.
- Special code (see below)
Estimated time for the whole process:
Times will vary depending on length of your video. Majority of your time will be spent editing & uploading the video. Everything else can go pretty quickly. The removal of special characters can be as quick as 10 minutes.
Process:
- Upload video to YouTube
- Once uploaded & processed look for the CC to appear by the volume & setting gear (*Key! This has to be present in order for it to work).
- Then in Chrome, on a Mac, hold down Option+Command+J or Press F12 on Windows to open the Javascript console (see clip)
- Copy & paste the special code (found below) in the code area & hit “enter/ return”
- A new tab should open with your transcription & special characters.
- To remove the special characters I do command+F to open up “Find & Replace” menu. Then I start typing the various special characters (one at a time) in the “Find” area and leave “Replace with” blank. Hit “Replace” and it deletes the special characters.
- Once the characters are gone you can simply start piecing your copy together. The nice thing about this is most of the copy is written for you. You just have to piece it together and add what you want.
Special Code: *Copy and paste the YouTube Code into Chrome. If you do it directly from here it may error out.
Hi there, Thanks for this info, but I cannot get it to work for me.
I tried it on a couple of videos that I had uploaded a while ago and I keep getting an “error syntax Illegal” remark. UGH!
Could it be that it must be done a fresh upload? I think everything else I did according to your instrucs.
HELP!!!
Thanks again!
Kim, It could be the copy and pasting of the code. Try to copy and paste the code into a word doc or note app and then copy & paste it from there. For some reason if you copy and paste directly from the site it does not work. If that doesn’t work it could be because the videos are older and their code is not up to date. When you bring in all these variables it gets crazy! Especially with code.
I tried as well, got the same error. I pasted into Notepad and then copied that and pasted into chrome– then the ugly illegal error comes up.
Thanks Josh for reaching out. Yes, the code thing is really weird. When I copy it from my Evernote document and it works. Not sure why. So I created and tested a plain text document (You can find above) that is working. Try copying & pasting that. Hope that works for you.
Got it working– I think this is a Windows OS issue… You need to copy and paste to a plain text doc (Notepad) and then the two ” ” quote marks need to be erased, and retyped. 🙂
Awesome! So glad it worked out for you! Thanks for sharing that tip too! 😉
Love this FREE transcript! This wouldn’t work for my longer videos so I split the video and was able to download the first half of the transcript then the second.. So that’s my solution for now. I would rather be in control of my blog content so this helps so much!! Now I can stop delegating this part and delegate the other elements. But I honestly will most likely send this video to my VA to make it easier for her to take my words and copy into a blog post.
Is there any other way to get to the Javascript console? F12 isn’t working with me and I’m using Windows. 🙁
Not that I have seen unfortunately.