Five iOS apps for adding text and graphics to your social videos

Credit: By Sylvain Naudin on Flickr. Some rights reserved.

Since Facebook and Twitter introduced autoplay for their newsfeeds, publishers have tried to crack the code for social video that can grab viewers' attention even when they are watching with the sound off.

But making this type of videos does not have to require a big team of producers and motion graphics designers.

Here are five apps that can help you add subtitles and graphics to your social media packages on-the-go.

Splice

With Splice, you can edit your social video in a multitude of ways and adding subtitles and text overlays is one of them.

To create a new video, tap 'New project+' and select the file from your camera roll. Next, choose your aspect ratio for the platform you intend to share your video on.

To add subtitles, tap the 'text' icon and start writing. You can select text colour, background and font, and even add sounds from the app's database or a voiceover. Finally, you can choose from an array of effects if that is your thing.

When you are done, the 'share' button in the top right-hand corner lets you choose your frame-per-second setting and save to camera roll or post on any social app on your phone.

Cost: Subscriptions from £2.99/week after 1 week free trial Device: iOS

Title Master

Title Master lets you film video within the app, as well as import it.

You can personalise any text and stickers with an ample choice of fonts and animations for titles and graphics. A special effects feature is also available, with a number of animation options such as scale and fade or slide.

The app has a handy feature for easily duplicating your text or graphics after the custom transitions or colours are applied, to save time if you want to keep a constant style throughout the video.

Title Master also has sharing options for Facebook and Youtube, as well as saving to your device.

Cost: £1.99 Devices: iOS

Vont

Vont is another app where footage can only be imported from your device. Once you have selected your video, you can then crop a selection and tap to add text. The app supports square video if you are creating footage for Instagram or Facebook.

You can change the font from a drop-down list (more than 400 fonts are currently available), add symbols or emojis and change the colour and style options of your text.

A limited number of transitions are also available, such as slide, zoom in or fade – you can establish the duration of each transition by typing in the time you want it to start and finish.

The app offers three exporting options, including HD and full HD, and you can save the video or select 'open in other apps' to upload to social media.

A very similar app developed by the same company, Phonto, is available for Android devices.

Cost: Free Devices: iOS

Text on Video

Text on Video, as the name says, only allows you to add text to your footage.

The app lets you change font, colour and animation, but also fine tune your subtitles by tweaking the alignment and line spacing, as well as the width of the frame in which it is displayed.

Other useful features include adjusting the volume of music added or of the original sound of your video, which can be useful if you are using footage recorded in a loud space or want to get rid of annoying background noise.

Text on Video will add a watermark to your videos in the bottom right corner unless you upgrade to one of the paid-for versions of the app, which also include more fonts and editing tools, for £2.99.

Sharing options include saving to camera roll, email and uploading to Instagram.

Cost: Free Devices: iOS

Over.Video

In this app, video can be imported from your device or filmed within the app, and footage is displayed in a timeline.

This makes it easy to scroll through and tweak the on-screen duration of each visual element added, at a glance.

Like Text on Video, Overvideo has a number of personalisation options for subtitles, such as adjusting the opacity and size.

The app also supports other graphics and music, and includes sharing options to email and Instagram.

You can upgrade your free version for more features and fonts, starting at $2.99 per week.

Cost: Free Devices: iOS

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Update: This article was updated with the Splice app. The original version published on 15 March 2016 metionned Gravie that no longer exists.

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