5 ways to easily include accessibility into your social media plan

Our senses, the way we walk, the way we talk – these are all things that we take for granted every day. Others, however, may be facing a challenge that prevents them from experiencing life the way that we do. 

Defined, social media accessibility is “the practice of designing and developing social media content and posts that provide a smooth, inclusive experience for everyone,” according to Sprout Social. 

Considering that one in four Americans live with a disability, having accessible resources available are incredibly important to help people with and without disabilities experience social media as akin to the way we do.

Making the online and social media experience inclusive and accessible for everyone is extremely important, especially considering that 62% of adults with a disability report having a laptop, and 72% report using a smartphone according to Sprout Social. Without this aspect of inclusion, you are missing a whole audience online! 

1. Add alt text to images 

Think, for example, of someone who has trouble seeing or is blind. This person may not be able to see photos on an Instagram and may rely on screen-reading assistive technology that reads aloud image descriptions of what is shown in the Instagram feed at that moment in time.  

Without social media managers adding descriptive alt text themselves, screen reading technology  

2. Caption videos and stories 

For those with hearing loss, it is really important that they have a way to “listen” to videos by reading captions. 

Captions, while there are a few different types, are the words that appear on a video as it plays.  

Captions are important for many different situations, not only for people with hearing loss. Accessible Social points out that captions are helpful if: 

• The environment is noisy 

• The audio on the video is low quality 

• The video is not in your native language 

• The speaker isn’t speaking clearly 

• You want to listen to the video with no audio 

Accessible Social also points out that a 2019 study from Verizon Media and Publicis Media found that “69% of people watch videos without sound in public places” and 85% of Facebook users watch or begin videos with the sound off. Basically, captions are a great idea to not only be accessible, but to cater to every general audience that you are targeting in your social media strategy.  

3. Be mindful of color contrast 

Curious if two colors will be readable against one another? Accessible Social has a GREAT tool that lays out the colors of the rainbow and how readable other colors are on them (see screenshot below from their website!) 

A great rule of thumb is if it’s hard for you to read, then it is definitely hard for someone with a visual impairment or experiences color blindness.  

Accessible Social points out a contrast analyzer by Adobe Color that creates accessible color palettes that meet WCAG contrast standards. 

Image credit: Accessible Social

 4. #CamelCase Hashtag use 

Hashtags and social media go hand in hand. Colorado State has a great article explaining the use of hashtags with social media. "Screen readers have a difficult time reading hashtags that are all lowercase. For example, #thisisnotaccessible.” 

https://social.colostate.edu/best-practices/8-ways-to-make-your-social-media-content-more-accessible/ 

In order to make hashtags accessible, it is good practice to capitalize the first letter of each word in the hashtag, commonly known as CamelCase. For example, #ThisIsAccessible. 

Colorado State also makes a great point – adding hashtags in the caption means that screen readers will read each and every hashtag. If you are putting a lot (more than 5 or so) it is good practice to just put them in the comments so that those with visual impairments won’t have to sit through listening to each and every one. 

5. Language

When representing yourself as a designer, a brand, or a company you’re working for, it is extremely important to be always mindful of language. 

In terms of inclusive language, especially when it comes to writing captions or making graphics, it is important to realize when some terms are not as appropriate to use as you may think. 

Autistic Hoya has an extensive list of ableist terms to avoid that you should check out if you are creating content for social media. 

Some of the terms that Autistic Hoya suggest are generally ableist include: 

• Bonkers 

• Crazy 

• Deranged 

• Stupid 

• Psycho 

• Spaz 

• Maniac 

• Lame 

 
These tend to be some of the more common terms that can be generally interpreted as non-inclusive language.  

If you want to be more inclusive in the social scape, just check out Accessible Social, an amazing resource outlining everything from alt text writing tips to copy and formatting, audio and video, and more.