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Cover image for Subtitles on Twitter are a pain. You should include them anyway. Here's how.
Savvas Stephanides
Savvas Stephanides

Posted on • Originally published at savvas.me

Subtitles on Twitter are a pain. You should include them anyway. Here's how.

Video subtitles on Twitter are a PAIN IN THE ASS.

NO, that's not an excuse to exclude them from your videos.

Let's make it less of a pain in the ass in 2 minutes or less.

Twitter video is great for engagement. But for it to have as wide a reach as possible, you need subtitles.

Turns out, however, adding subtitles to your video is a huge headache.

In 2 minutes, it'll be less of a headache.

Read on.

Step 1: Upload your video

To upload your video on Twitter, first head to Media Studio, on either desktop or mobile.

Click on Upload Media.

and select your video.

Step 2: Create the subtitles file

Next step is to create the subtitles file.

It's called an SRT file.

It looks like this:

1
00:00:02,000 --> 00:00:08,000
This is some text

2
00:00:08,000 --> 00:00:10,000
This is some more text

3
00:00:10,000 --> 00:00:22,000
Even more text
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode
  • The first line is the order for each line of your subs, starting with 1

  • The second line is the starting and ending time. Example: 00:00:02,000 --> 00:00:08,000 means that the line starts at 2 seconds and ends at 8 seconds

  • The third line is the actual subtitle text.

Use Notepad, VSCode or any text editor to create your own file. Follow this pattern each time somethin in your video needs subtitling (speech, sounds etc).

Step 3: Add the file to your video

Save your subs file as a .srt file.

Go back to the Media Studio and click on your video.

Click on the Subtitles tab.

Choose a language (eg. English) from the dropdown and click Upload.

Choose the .srt file you just created.

It should soon be added to the Languages list below.

You're done! The subtitles should soon show up on your video!

Step 4: Tweet your video

Use the Tweet button to share your subtitled video.

Your viewers should be able to see the subtitles by clicking the "CC" button at the bottom right of the video.

Your viewers should be able to see the subtitles by clicking the "CC" button at the bottom right of the video.

Top comments (6)

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grahamthedev profile image
GrahamTheDev • Edited

I wonder what prompted you to cross post this here 😜 I feel attacked 🀣

Great article and super helpful for a Twitter noob like me!

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savvasstephnds profile image
Savvas Stephanides

Some recent events have brought this article back to my attention. πŸ˜‰ πŸ˜‰

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andypiper profile image
Andy Piper

There is also API support for uploading subtitles. I don’t think that Media Studio is available to all users at the moment.

What would make adding the subtitles less problematic?

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savvasstephnds profile image
Savvas Stephanides

Hello Andy! Thank you for your reply. I thought Media Studio was widely available. I wasn't aware it's not available to everyone. I think to make adding subtitles less problematic, the first step has been already done, which is to be able to upload subtitles without having to go through the Media Studio. There's an "Upload subtitles" link while uploading video for a new tweet, which is awesome. I guess the next step would be to be able to be able to add subtitles without an srt file, for the common person who isn't that much experienced with editing text files.

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ayyash profile image
Ayyash

wow i didn't know this world even existed!