What is audio transcription, and who needs it?

What is audio transcription and why does it matter? We take a look at how some industries are being transformed by transcription technology.
April 25, 2019

What does your business really need? Defining exactly what things your company can't live without - let alone thrive without - should be a priority for any budding entrepreneur. From project management platforms and collaborative tools to meeting rooms and internal comms for your team, you need to provide the goods to keep things ticking over.

For many businesses, audio transcription is an essential part of the daily grind. There's been a huge shift in content from written to audio and video, meaning there's reams of data to be typed up by an audio transcription service. Recording audio has also become so much simpler; recording interviews, meetings and seminars is a popular practice across many industries now. But what happens to that recorded material when we hit the 'stop recording' button?

Most businesses don't realize the full potential of their recorded content, and some leave the spoken word on audio files without transcribing it - but is this an effective way to ensure your business is thriving?

What is audio transcription?

Audio transcription is the process of converting speech in an audio file into written text. That could be any recording featuring audio - an interview recording, academic research, a video clip of your great grandmother's speech at her birthday party or a recording of a company town hall.

 

Transcription converts audio to text

 

What industries need audio transcription services the most?

Journalism & Media

Productivity is an essential part of any journalist's day-to-day. Meeting deadlines, scheduling important interviews and quickly turning around articles that grab and hold attention is really, really hard to do, so you need to make smart decisions about the tools to help you out.

In the world of journalism and media, automated audio transcription is a reporter's secret weapon. It allows the journalist to focus entirely on their interview and getting the best information possible without worrying about note taking. Audio transcription software from Trint creates fully searchable transcripts which makes life my easier for journalists who need all the time they can get.

 

Video Production

We're all obsessed with consuming video - over a billion hours of video are watched on YouTube every single day - so videographers and editors have their work cut out. Transcription is essential to the video world since a lot of us consume video without audio because of accessibility, environment or personal preference, making subtitling and captioning a necessity.

Adding subtitles and captions to your video files can be time consuming for manual transcribers - typing up all of your footage isn't the best use of any video editor's time. Automated transcription software creates transcription files that help get that video live on the web for your audience quickly and easily. It's a no brainer.

 

Transcribe interviews with automated transcription

 

Market Research & UX

The need for transcription in the market research and user experience (UX) world is growing with more pressure from consumers. Today's businesses need to know their audience inside out: with such stiff competition for attention from customers, and with customer loyalty at an all-time low, brands can't afford to get it wrong.

UX testing is one way businesses are getting to know their market. This can mean sending sample products to customers and discussing feedback in detail. Here's where transcription comes in. Just like any interview, UX testing and interviews with your target market should be recorded and analyzed. This feedback is like gold and will guide the way you create both current and future products and services.

 

Academic Research

Recording and analyzing information is at the very core of any academic research project. Focus groups, interviews and all manner of research techniques need audio recording and transcription to form the basis of the project. Analyzing qualitative transcripts to find patterns and prove hypotheses is where researchers find value in their data. Manually searching for patterns in data sets is time consuming and unproductive; automated audio transcription is fast becoming a central tool for researchers as it creates fully searchable, accurate transcriptions of recorded files to help researchers reach their goals more effectively. And with coding and tagging tools, themes will appear to emerge by themselves.

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Transcription is quickly becoming essential to a range of industries, and as we're increasingly conducting business via audio and video software around the world, the need for transcription in every business is growing. It's best business practice to record important meetings, essential soundbites and video conferences with suppliers; and searching through transcripts for that all-important quote from your boss to impress them at your next appraisal goes a long way to boosting your job prospects.

Harness the power of smart automated transcription using Trint's powerful platform, and take control of your data today. Get started for free.

 

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