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Content Creators – Add Words to Your Voice with Audio Transcription
From podcasts to presentations, many businesses and individuals today are creating audio and video content to promote either themselves or the industry they represent. Once the recording has been completed, however, the content creator’s work is not yet over. In reaching the goal of full engagement with your target audience, or to attract new viewers, there’s another essential element that will further engage your listeners or viewers with your spoken content.
Welcome to the wonderful world of Audio Transcription!
In this blog, we’ll look at the value of adding audio transcriptions to your audio and video projects, which will help you fully present your message in a clear and accessible format to a much wider audience.
What is Audio Transcription and Why Do I Need It?
Audio transcription is essentially the process of taking spoken content from a recording and converting it into text data. This text can then be formatted as required and either stored for future use, printed out in physical documents, or presented in a digital format online. In the cases of podcasts and online presentations, this text can be uploaded as an additional resource to accompany your audio or visual content.
There are several benefits of audio transcription for this purpose:
- People with hearing difficulties will be able to read along as they view or listen to your podcast or presentation, widening your audience and helping to make your content meet any accessibility requirements for your industry
- Your content can be found by search engines based on the exact words spoken, meaning that anyone searching for information about your subject matter will now be able to discover your content
- Individuals, organisations and businesses will view you, the content provider, as a reliable source of valuable information
- Snippets of your content can more easily be extracted for advertising or creating ‘shorts’ on social media platforms, without having to keep listening through the whole recording, as you’ll be able to read through and locate the relevant sections for extraction
- As you create more content, it will become increasingly difficult to remember exactly what has (or hasn’t) been said before, so audio transcription becomes an invaluable tool to know all the content in past recordings, which can be linked to and referred to with ease in future projects
I Need Audio Transcription – How Do I Get It?
There are three routes to having your created content transcribed, and we’ll look at each of them briefly.
1. Do It Yourself
This may seem like the most cost-effective solution – after all, you know the most about your content! However, unless the podcast or presentation is a fully scripted performance, it’s more likely that everything will need to be listened to and typed up word-for-word to produce an accurate transcript. If you’re a content creator, then for every hour of audio or video you produce you’ll be looking at a minimum of between 6 and 10 hours of extra time to transcribe the audio and verify its accuracy before uploading it with your content.
2. Use AI Transcription Tools
AI is all the rage these days and can do some amazing things, including listening to people speaking and producing the corresponding text. AI transcription tools do appear to be very fast and can initially seem to have a low cost. However, the accuracy of these tools is at best around 80% even with crystal-clear audio. In other words, they’re not as perfect as you may think. For a few funny examples of the simple but significant errors AI can make, read our blog Lost In Translation: Examples of AI transcript blunders that will leave you giggling!
It’s abundantly clear that a transcript produced by AI tools still needs to be carefully checked by a human listening through the whole recording and making corrections as they go along. The time taken to ‘fix’ one of these transcripts can be almost as long as the time it would take to transcribe it all from scratch, so what appears to be a timesaver can actually cause more frustration and lost time, when your main objective is to create new content.
3. Use a Professional Transcription Company
When you need reliable and accurate transcription for your valuable content, a professional transcription company with expert human transcribers can give you the freedom and peace of mind to get on with doing what you do best as a content creator… create more wonderful content! The value of transcripts produced by professional human transcribers is immense. Compared to an AI machine, which does not care about the importance of the recording, a skilled human transcriber understands the values held by content creators and ensures that they give complete care and attention to the subject matter. This will involve research and verification of the spelling of names, brands, and other technical words relating to the topic at hand.
For a more detailed look at the benefits of using a professional human transcription company, please read our blog The Power of Human Transcribers: Accuracy Beyond Automation.
What Message Are You Getting Across?
Bearing in mind all of the above, it’s entirely your choice which route you choose for the transcription of your audio and video podcasts and presentations. Since you’re already creating high-quality content for your listeners and viewers, you’ll benefit the most from a solution that works with you to that same high standard.
Here at McGowan Transcriptions, we consider your content to be as valuable and important as you do. We have a team of expert human transcribers who are experienced in understanding many subjects and industries, skilled in research, and dedicated to providing the most accurate transcripts for your projects. Call the team today for a chat about how we can help you maximise your message on 0800 158 3747 or drop us an email at office@mcgowantranscriptions.co.uk.
Written by Paul Dyson
March 2024
