What to do with a video after you record it
Add captions, trim the dead air at each end, write the post text, and put the same file on every platform. That is the whole job. Most videos that never get posted die in this hour rather than during filming, usually because the person opened an editor and lost the afternoon.
Captions first, because most people watch muted
The majority of social video is watched with the sound off, at least at first, so a video without captions is a video most people scroll past without knowing what it was about. Captions are not an accessibility extra here, they are the thing that makes the video work at all.
Burn them into the picture rather than uploading a separate subtitle file. A sidecar caption file is routinely lost when a video moves between platforms, and several platforms will not carry one at all. Captions rendered into the frame always survive.
Keep them inside the safe area. Text in the bottom third of the frame sits underneath the platform’s own caption and buttons on a phone, which is the most common way good captions end up unreadable.
Trim both ends, and only both ends
Almost every self-recorded video has two or three seconds at the start where you are reaching for the button and settling, and the same at the end. Cutting those is usually the only edit a talking-head video needs, and it improves the opening more than anything else you could do, because the first three seconds decide whether the rest gets watched.
Resist anything beyond that. Cutaways, music beds, zoom effects and transitions all take time and rarely make a small business video perform better. The exception is genuinely useful footage: if you are describing a part, showing the part for four seconds helps.
One file, one caption per platform
The video is identical everywhere. The words around it should not be.
| Platform | What the text should do | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|
| First line is a hook, the rest can be longer | Only the first line or two shows before “more” | |
| TikTok | Short, plain, one idea | Long captions cover the video itself |
| YouTube Shorts | A real title, written like a search | The title is doing search work here, unlike the others |
| Plainer and more direct than Instagram | Audience is usually older and more local | |
| Lead with the professional point | Asking for comments suppresses the post |
That last one catches people out. LinkedIn reduces the reach of posts that ask for comments, so the “comment a word below” ending that works on Instagram actively costs you there. Post the same video without the ask, or skip LinkedIn for that one.
Where the file should end up
In your camera roll, as a plain MP4, with no watermark and no branding that is not yours. Check this before you rely on any app: record ten seconds and try to save it. Apps that let you make the whole video and then ask for a subscription before you can export are common, and you want to find that out on a test clip rather than on the video you needed today.
Keep the finished files. A video that did nothing in March sometimes does well reposted in August, and the same answer often works again a year later when you have forgotten you filmed it.
Posting the same thing five times is fine
Almost nobody follows you on more than one platform, and those who do will not mind. The reflex to make each one unique is what turns a twenty minute job into a whole afternoon and is the main reason people stop. Post the same video, change the words around it, move on.
The short answer
Captions burned in and inside the safe area. Trim the top and tail, nothing else. One file, five captions, five platforms. Then close the laptop, because the next video is worth more than another twenty minutes on this one.
8 September 2026
Talk your idea into a video
Yarn writes the script, puts it over your camera, and hands back a captioned video. No account, no watermark, and your footage stays on your phone.
