How to create a transcript of a webinar

A transcript is a text document that contains the spoken words of a webinar. Creating a transcript of your webinar has several benefits:

1. It helps with marketing efforts by providing content for blog posts, social media, and email campaigns;

2. It makes your webinars more accessible to people with hearing impairments; and it improves your SEO by making your content keyword-rich.

Below, we'll walk you through the process of creating a transcript for your next webinar.

There are three main ways to create a transcript of your webinar: you can do it yourself, you can hire a professional transcription service, or you can use automatic speech recognition (ASR) software. Let's take a look at each option in turn.

1. Slow Option – Doing it yourself:

This option is best if you have good note-taking skills and can type quickly. To create a transcript using this method, start by recording your webinar so that you can play it back as you type out the spoken words. Then, as you listen to the recording, type out everything that is said verbatim—don't worry about editing or polishing the language, just get everything down as accurately as possible. Once you have a complete draft, go back and edit it for clarity and grammar before posting it online.

2. Expensive Option – Hiring a Professional Transcription Service:

This option is best if accuracy is paramount and you don't mind spending a bit of money to get it. When hiring a transcription service, be sure to ask about their experience transcribing webinars, what format they will deliver the transcript in (e.g., Word doc), and how much they charge per hour of audio. Most services will require you to send them an audio recording of your webinar; if you don't have one, they may be able to transcribe a live stream but this will be more expensive. Once you have received the transcript from the transcription service, read through it and make any necessary edits before posting it online.

3. Most Popular Option – Using Speech to Text Software:

This option is best if you want to save money and don't mind sacrificing some accuracy for the sake of convenience. STT software programs use machine learning to transcribe audio recordings; however, they are not perfect and will likely miss some words or phrases here and there. That said, ASR software is getting better all the time and may be sufficient for your needs. If using ASR software is something you're interested in, here's a few tools for you to try — some popular options include Hipclip, Otter, and Rev. Once you have chosen a program, follow the instructions for transcribing your webinar recording; then, go through the transcript and make any necessary corrections.

Conclusion:

Creating a transcript of your next webinar is a great way to provide valuable content for your marketing efforts while making your webinars more accessible to viewers with hearing impairments. There are three main ways to create transcripts: doing it yourself, hiring a professional transcription service, or using automatic speech recognition software. What are you waiting for? Start transcribing now!

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