How to create accessible and inclusive social media content

To help you understand the personal requirements of disabled people that use your social media channels, we are delighted to present a guide with tips that we integrate throughout our own social media platforms that ensures everyone is included and has equal access to Direct Access’ content.

Add Alt-Text to all social media images;

Alt-Text refers to the written description of a particular image on social media. By providing a description of the image when uploading it, visually impaired people who use screen readers will be able to interpret the image since screen reader software automatically reads Alt-text aloud.

Alt-text is extremely important to accessibility as image-based posts are often the most widely circulated across all social media platforms, meaning that your image also has a high chance of being shown to someone with a visual disability.  Since a social media post’s chance in the algorithms often depend on the inclusion of attractive visuals, becoming skilled at writing Alt-text is a must. Conveniently, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and X all make it easy to integrate alt text.

Here is an example of Al-text for the image at the start of this article; A smiling Caucasian man wearing silver colored headphones holds his phone within an office environment. 

Adding image descriptions to images;

Image Descriptions work much the same as Alt-Text, except they are more detailed. While the typical Alt-Text for a static image is straightforward; image descriptions will typically offer further information on an image subject’s clothing, gender identity, disability, and any general environmental information within the image. 

For videos, it is best practice to include video descriptions of the action and imagery shared in video posts.

Captions on all video posts;

Captions on video posts are a must. In fact, many territories have made it so that any publicly broadcasted audio-visuals are required to have captions by law. Hence, it is considered best practice to include captions in social media posts. Programs such as Adobe Premiere Pro make it easy to include automatic captions, and many social media sites have similar options for caption integration. However, it is important that a human reviews auto-captions for spelling, punctuation etc. 

It is also important to remember that dialogue within a video is not the only audible element that requires captioning. The inclusion of background music and lyrics must be captioned for comprehension where included, while any videos that feature conversations between two people on-screen must be differentiated by text color. In all cases, the color of the text must have high contrast with its background. 

In all of Direct Access’ videos, our captions are white on a black background (which is considered best practice to accommodate people with visual impairments). Another consideration for text-based videos or content is to include a transcript in the comments or caption so that screen readers can interpret them, in addition to a voiceover, if possible.

Consider the response to the content in your videos;

If a video included flashing light imagery or any other element that might create a sensory overload in the viewer (such as sudden loud noises, or any potentially triggering subject matter) – it is important to provide warning about these elements at the start of the video. Otherwise, it is recommended that videos do not potentially harmful imagery include strobes or flashing transitions.

Camel Case Hashtags;

“Camel Case” is the practice of writing phrases without spaces or punctuation and with capitalized words (eg. #CamelCase, #DirectAccess vs #camelcase #directaccess). Doing this makes all hashtags screen-reader friendly.

Limited emoji use;

This is not to say that emojis cannot be included in posts at all, but try to be mindful of overusing them to convey important information or including them before the end of a sentence. For instance, id a reader is in the middle of reading a sentence interrupted by an emoji, it may muddle the information trying to be communicated – particularly for those who rely on screen readers for interpretation of captions and text.

Straightforward representation;

Perhaps one of the most overlooked and under discussed strategies to make disabled people’s experiences with social media not merely compliant, but genuinely enjoyable, is to simply include images of disabled people in marketing. This relates not only wheelchair users (who have long been the “go-to” for disabled representation), but also people with other visually identifiable disabilities such as Down Syndrome, Hearing/Visual Impairments, Cerebral Palsy etc.

Organizations that earnestly make effort to include images of disabled people within their marketing beyond the various ‘awareness days’ throughout the calendar year have the opportunity to create a genuinely welcoming atmosphere in their customer base and community. As a result, a confidence in your service or product can be developed in the eyes of disabled people, as the majority of businesses/organizations that do not specifically cater to disabled people tend to avoid imagery of disabled people in marketing and on social media.

Feel like you need more guidance? Direct Access can audit your website and social media platforms and review them for accessibility. Check out our Website Accessibility page here for more information.