Rapid advances in technology have drastically changed the way in which video is not only being created but also consumed. More than ever, people are turning to their smartphones to watch video – more than 75% of the world’s video consumption comes from mobile. Perhaps more staggering than the mobile traffic alone is the way in which video is consumed on mobile – with more than 90% of consumers claiming they’ve watched videos on mobile with sound off.

One of the key components in producing a compelling visual story with an online video maker is keeping the audience engaged – and in the likelihood your audience may be viewing your videos with their sound off, text is the most effective solution to ensure they retain (or better yet, engage with) your message. That’s why adding a video text overlay and figuring out how to make a text video is more important than ever.

If you really want to add text to video and make it stand-out – and therefore improve the likelihood of your audience engaging with your message – you’ll need to go beyond the traditional approach of plain text on screen. The Studio’s new suite of styling tools offers the perfect solution- or solution(s)- for bringing your video’s text to life. A text overlay and figuring out how to add text to video is a great play to start.

Here are just a few scroll-stopping ways to switch things up:

1. Plain’s not great. Animate!

We just launched 14 – yes 14 – new text styles for your video text overlay, each of which include their own unique animation. The animations increase the ‘production value’ of any video, and it’s all applied in the click of a button to edit video online without any manual labor needed. Add your brand colors and fonts to our easy video editor, and suddenly you’ve created a text element that will have your audience thinking you’re a professional editor.

Check out just a few of the ways to add text to video and text styles in the video example below!

2 – One’s no fun and two’s company – but three’s a party!

The Studio now offers the ability to include up to three text boxes on a single scene, each of which can use their own unique animated text style, font, color, and more. This opens nearly endless opportunities for creativity for video with text overlay on any scene. Our updated Scene Layouts panel is fully-stocked with these multi-text options. We recommend using one of our flashier text styles with a larger font as your main title, and something smaller and more subtle as a sub-title.

Check out the example below where our multi-text scene layouts were used to create a fun list video. 

3. Quotes deserve a scene of their own.

The use of quotes is a great way to drive message retention. Whether it’s inspirational or just informational, you’ll want your quote to stand out. The best way to do this is to make it the focal point of your scene. Our ‘Quote’ layout (shown below) does just that – and allows you to mark each component (both the quote and the speaker) with different stylistic touches. Add it to your next video text overlay to set the scene.

4 – Keep it simple – try text alone.

There’s a reason so many ads from companies like Apple rely on quick, fast punches of text – they grab our attention and resonate better than many ads out there. While visual media can help bolster a message, text-only scenes are a great way to ensure nothing gets lost in translation. 

The Studio’s text-only scenes feature allows you to put 100% of the focus on your message while incorporating any styles you’d like. Text-only scenes also make for great titles to kick off your video, or a way to break up multiple scenes worth of media. If you’re really looking to catch their attention, try a text-only scene with a bright background color and a large, darker font like the one shown below.

5 – Media should play nice with text.

It’s a no-brainer that you’ll want your fonts and colors to blend nicely with your media, but sometimes media can be so rich and diverse in color, it makes finding the right text style feel impossible. To combat this, try using a text overlay style that comes with a color background to ensure your text stays visible. 

Another great way to use a video text overlay is to manipulate the media itself. You can use our trim and crop tools to make adjustments and move objects around, or use one of our new media filters to switch up the media’s color tones. Need tips on how to make a text video? Go black-and-white, apply some sepia, or blur the media entirely (a great alternative to text-only scenes, shown below). Then add your text overlay to bring the video together. 

Regardless of what type of video you’re creating, properly styled text should be an essential component to ensuring it makes an impact. Reach out for a demo of our new styling features for a better understanding of how you can make an impact with text on video.