From YouTube Transcript to Blog: What's Actually Going On?
Victoria Anne Wise
From rough transcript to fleshed-out article
As someone who's worked with transcripts for over a decade, I know how to turn them into riveting content while maintaining your intention and voice.
I work with rough AI-generated transcripts, YouTube transcripts, and direct dictations. I also type transcripts manually, but I much prefer working with AI and tidying up what it creates: it's a huge time-saver!
For this portfolio piece, we're going to check out a sensemaking blog from my conflict transformation client. He does fantastic work, and it's been so enlightening seeing how our cognitive biases, politics, and the media really get in the way of progress.
Let's dive into this example article!
Our political system has significant incentives to manipulate our thinking. It’s profitable, gets people into office, and it’s pretty easy for them to do because of our cognitive biases. We want simplicity, and that works against us. One of the powerful ways this manipulation is happening is through narrative warfare. This political strategy is all over our media landscape as political parties and activist organizations use it to manipulate our thinking. Foreign powers use it to sow distrust.
Okay, now let's look at what Descript spat out before my editing:
"our political system is being incentivized to manipulate our thinking. It's profitable, it gets to them in office and it also is pretty easy to do cuz we're inherently trying to find simple things, . But one of the powerful ways that this is happening is something called narrative warfare.
Now, this is a political strategy that is being used all over our media landscape, but it's also being used by foreign powers to so distrust and it's being leveraged by political parties and activist organizations.."
Not bad from Descript, but it definitely needed tidying up, and the phrasing needed tightening for a written audience.
Let's look at my process for this client.
So, this particular client works with Descript, uploading their video or audio and letting the AI do its transcript magic. It's generally pretty good.
From there, I take the transcript and listen through the audio to correct any major AI screw-ups (honestly, some are hilarious) before crafting a blog post.
During this process, I:
🟥Edit the life out of the rough transcript while retaining the client's voice:
- Simplifying complex language to reach a wider audience
- Getting rid of filler words
- Turning passive voice into active voice
- Cutting out any repetition, whether words or whole paragraphs
- Removing the conversational tone that can occur with a transcript (as the client doesn't like that tone of voice—we all have our preferences, and I work with them!)
🟧Break the post up with:
- Headers
- Bullet points (much easier to take in, right?)
- Number lists
- Questions
- CTAs
🟨Create a snappy title and subtitle
🟩Source free stock images, editing them if necessary
🟦Create Substack-sized header images and quote graphics on Canva
🟪Ensure I include all references and relevant links:
- I'll source these if a client references any research without sending me the journal
- I work alongside a template containing links to include
🟥Add a shedload of relevant internal links
🟧Add a CTA and social media links
🟨Create a custom URL
🟩Schedule the post
Then we watch the open rate stack up! This client went from a 24% open rate to an average of 36% in a couple of months of our working together without any major overhaul or marketing focus. Not bad!
The client gets to reach a broader, multimedia audience and educate people on things that matter. They only have to focus on creating the content for the original transcript, not the transformation from video to blog!
And what does my client say?
I wanted you to know that I’m getting really good feedback on the recent pieces and your excellent writing. Thank you for your great work, you're a gem! :)
