Introduction to Accessible Social Media Content
Ebooks are not the only digital content that benefit from accessibility! All digital content, from webpages to Facebook posts, can be inclusive and accessible. This resource provides general recommendations which apply to most of the most popular social media platforms.
Suggested Prerequisite
Before you read this, you might want to read:
Accessible Social Media Content
Ebooks are not the only digital content that benefit from accessibility! All of your digital content, from webpages to Facebook posts, can be inclusive and accessible to your whole audience.
The following general recommendations apply to most of the most popular social media platforms – including Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc. For more detailed recommendations, and checklists, check out the Related Content section below.
To ensure that your social media content is accessible, start thinking about the wide variety of people that could be interacting with your post. Considering your entire potential audience will help enhance your social engagement by making your posts accessible and inclusive. A few general tips include:
- Use plain language, which can be easily understood.
- Include image descriptions for images.
- Include captions for videos.
- Include audio descriptions for videos.
- Use CamelCase for your #HashTags. This will help ensure that screen readers announce the text correctly, instead of announcing something that could potentially sound rude, like #analbatross, instead of the much more innocent #AnAlbatross.
- Be judicious in your use of emojis. It is common to use multiple emojis in a row, and it can be frustrating for a screen reader user to hear the description repeated again and again (“Smiling face with tongue out; smiling face with tongue out; smiling face with tongue out”)
These general tips, together with the more detailed instruction in the resources below, will take your social media game to the next level!
Download the Checklist
Download a PDF version of the tips for making your posts accessible and inclusive.
Next Steps
1
Enhancing the Accessibility of a Website
Introduction to Website Accessibility
There is a lot of in-depth information available about how to make websites and digital content accessible. This resource discusses 8 recommendations which serve as a great start!
Subject(s): Strategic Planning, Website Accessibility
Resource Type(s): Foundations and Rationale, Standards and Best Practices
2
Adding Alt-text to Images on Social Media
A Guide to Adding Image Descriptions to Your Social Media Posts
Most of the popular social media platforms allow users to add alt-text to their images. This resource provides step-by-step instructions for Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
Subject(s): Digital Marketing, Image Descriptions
Resource Type(s): Standards and Best Practices, Step-by-Step
External Links to More Information
AFB’s Social Media Accessibility Guidelines
Provides tips to make social media accessible to low vision and blind users, including using CamelCase on words in hashtags and URLs; providing image descriptions; and providing captions, video descriptions and transcripts for video.
Social Media Accessibility Guidelines
This page from Princeton University gives some guidelines for making social media posts more accessible. It covers alternative text for images, video captions, animated GIFs, using mixed case for hashtags so they will be read properly by screen readers, and use of emojis and emoticons.
Planning, creating and publishing accessible social media campaigns
This guide outlines the key steps that people can take to create social media campaigns that meet the accessibility standards. It’s been designed to be quick and simple to adopt, and it includes paths to further learning, and downloadable templates you can use!
Digital Accessibility: Use Plain Language
This short webpage explains how plain language benefits all users, including people with cognitive disabilities, low reading literacy, and people who are encountering an unknown topic or language. Using plain language enhances the accessibility of a content for all readers!