How to Make Your Social Media Content Accessible

Jul 15

Ensuring that your social media content is inclusive means that you will be providing the best user experience possible for a diverse range of people. Just as you would normally tailor your social media content to target different segments of your audience, all of your content should be tailored in a way that makes it accessible to all. This involves providing different ways in which people can engage with your content and your brand and addressing any barriers that might prevent someone from engaging with your content.

Why does inclusivity matter?

Aside from enabling equality online, inclusive social media will help you to connect with as many people as possible. In the UK, nearly 2 million people are living with sight loss, while around 1.5 million people have a learning disability. Such disabilities and learning differences can significantly impact a user’s online experience. By not catering for these differences, you will be missing out on connecting with a large segment of your audience.

How to Make Your Content More Accessible

So, how can we all work to ensure that our social media content is as inclusive as possible? There are various ways in which you can make your text easily readable by Assistive Technology (AT) software, and ensure any audio content is accessible for the hard of hearing. Here are just a few ways that you can begin to make your social media content more accessible.

1. Use capital letters in hashtags

One of the downfalls of hashtags is that they can’t contain punctuation or spaces. This means that when you write hashtags out in lower case, it can make it difficult for AT software to properly read what you are saying.

Using capital letters makes hashtags easier to read with AT software. Not only this, but capitalising ensures that the hashtag won’t be misinterpreted. Here is an example of how AT software can struggle to read non-capitalised hashtags:

Below, you can see how much easier AT software can read capitalised hashtags:

2. Add alternative text to images

Alternative text tells people what an image is showing. When you add alt text to an image, it means that AT software can read the alt text out loud, letting a visually impaired user know what it is and what it looks like. Taking the time to add a short alt text description to your posts can make them infinitely more accessible to visually impaired users.

Nowadays, all major social media platforms have the option to add alt text to posts. While some platforms like Facebook now automatically generate alt text, it can be more accurate and useful to write alt text yourself.

When writing alt text, imagine you are describing an image to someone over the phone. Remember that some AT software will cut off alt text at around 125 characters, so keep it short.

Top tip: more and more people are using image descriptions to expand on alt text. Image descriptions should be included in the captions of images, and can be much more descriptive than alt text. This can be especially useful for highly visual platforms like Instagram.

3. Avoid using custom fonts

Recently, it has become trendy for brands to use ‘custom fonts’ in their social media posts. This can include bolded or italic fonts that are different from the standard fonts used on a given social media platform.

These can make text unreadable by AT software which will skip over the text completely, and therefore these fonts should be avoided. Instead, stick to the fonts which are standard to the platform.

4. Place hashtags, mentions and emojis at the end of your posts

*Screenshot of an Instagram caption which places hashtags at the end of the body text.*

When someone is using AT software to read your social media posts, consider that AT software reads out the assigned description for an emoji. This means that when you use multiple emoji in a row, a user’s experience can be slowed down significantly.

AT software also reads out punctuation like hashtags and @s (usernames/tags). By placing all of these things at the end of your post, you will allow users to access important information first. Use your emojis in moderation to avoid spamming users with long character descriptions.

Top tip: Customising emojis, for example by changing the colour, can make the emoji description even longer. Avoid customising emojis, or limit yourself to one custom emoji per post, to make your content easier to read.

5. Use video captions

Using closed captions is crucial to ensure those with hearing impairments can access your content. Captions can also help people who are watching in their non-native language, or viewers who are watching from areas where they can’t have their sound on - 85% of videos on Facebook are watched on mute.

A recent study found that captioned videos are viewed 40% more often than uncaptioned videos.

Auto-generated captions are now available on Facebook, YouTube, TikTok and Instagram, even for live videos. However, for Twitter and LinkedIn, you will need to upload a SubRip (.srt) file with your video. On Instagram Reels and TikTok, you can also add your own captions by adding custom text to your videos.

*Screenshot of an Instagram post which uses contrasting colours and readable fonts.*

6. Make your posts visually accessible

Using contrasting colours and easy-to-read fonts can go a long way in making your posts visually accessible. Ensure that information is logically presented, for example if you are providing a ‘how to’ in the form of an infographic, it makes sense to have content clearly ordered in a list. Doing so can make your posts more easily understandable for dyslexic individuals.

Any evenly spaced, Sans Serif font should be easily readable, but FS Me is another excellent choice. Another option is Dyslexie - a font specifically designed for people with dyslexia.

What’s next?

Now that you are armed with more ways in which you can make your social media content more accessible, why not assess your current content by having an AT software read through it, or by watching your video content without audio? By attempting to view your content from the perspective of users with sensory differences, you may come up with even more ways in which you can make your social media content inclusive.