Digital Selling – Inclusion by Design

Last week, I gave a presentation to our Public Sector team on Digital Selling focused mainly on LinkedIn and Twitter.

The session covered of some great content from my colleague @ellenwilson, on creating the brand presence you want on LinkedIn – more to follow on that in my next blog, but we also guided our sellers around how to be inclusive with your content and engagement on LinkedIn and Twitter. I have shared some of that content as it may be helpful for others looking to share their approaches on accessibility in a digital world.

Watch your hashtag!

How many times do we litter our tweets and Linkedin posts with hundreds of hashtags? For me, I was guilty as charged. However, I learnt something new about CamelCase this week. CamelCase is simply looking at the hashtag you use and writing each new word with capitals. Why would you want to do this? For anyone using text to speech recognition software, “wordsare” read as one word. So, a hashtag like #thenewnormal becomes “then-ewn-ormal”. When you capitalize every new word, and write it as #TheNewNormal, it will sound as you want it to sound. Also, it makes it easier to read and view in general.

Pictures paint 1000 words

All video uploads and clips that include dialogue should have closed captions on. For anyone with loss of hearing or if you happen to be in the situation when the family wants to watch Strictly Come Dancing but you cannot bear it and want to watch your own video. When you use captions as standard, more people can follow your content. It also can create a richer experience, making it easier to follow.

This is an image of an image.

Whenever, you share an image add alternative text so they can be described by a screen reader.  Some good practices around writing ALT Text are:

·      Don’t explain “This is an image of a women in a boardroom” as when it is screen read it is read as “Image , this is an image of…” Simply describe it and with relevant context. For example, “Young woman presenting from the front of a boardroom to a seated group of men and women who are smiling”. 

·      Keep it simple, if there are important details you want to share e.g. what is she presenting? “Young woman presenting quantum physics from the front of a boardroom to a seated group of men and women who are smiling.”

How do I pronounce that?

We have all been there, gone into LinkedIn before a meeting to realise that we can’t pronounce the name of the person you are speaking to. This can result in a less than smooth initial meeting at a moment where we want to make a great first impression. Yes, guilty as charged again. LinkedIn Mobile App has a great feature where you can record your name and how to pronounce it. I am lucky – before I got married, I only had 8 characters in my entire name.  My name is still easy to pronounce phonetically even now, but people still struggle “Is it Sarah or Sara”? I have now recorded this how I say my name, wouldn’t it be great if everyone did!

Looks pretty, but…

Forget the fact that some fonts are like a spider writing has crawled through ink on high speed drugs whilst riding a horse in high wind and you cannot make sense of whether that is an “f”, an “l” or a “k”. Some Fonts that are customised or unique are often difficult to be read by a screen reader or text to speech programme. This will either fail to read the words or mis read the words that are there. For some of us, it will definitely take longer to read. Whilst artistic font is all pretty on the surface if you can’t read it, it’s not inclusive. Fact.

Emotive with Emojis

When I was younger Emoji’s were never a thing - but then they didn’t have mobile phones when I was younger. Some people will say there is no place in a professional world for an emoji. So here are some Emoji and Emoticon tips for you:

• Use emoji’s in moderation. Smiley faces, hearts and balloons don’t read well from screen readers.
• Place any emoji’s you want to use at the end of a social post.
• Don’t use emoji’s in your profile name.
• Emoji’s are standard colours and screen readers are trained to read them but if you alter or customise them it is likely that the will be read differently and when you use an Emoticon - that’s a pictorial representation e.g. colon dash bracket – then that is what is read rather than what you intend :-)
• Avoid using emoji’s that are not visible in dark or light mode – anyone adjusting colour contrast could find it difficult to see it.
• Some emojis might not convey clearly the emotion they are supposed to convey. In that very sense they too can be jargon

I have a couple of blogs planned for my next foray into the world of digital selling let me know what you would like to hear. 

·      Building your personal brand digitally

·      Digital platforms and websites – what should you be starting to think about

·      Inclusive Teams & Microsoft Office

If I feel brave and get over my “face for radio” who knows I may even vlog them – with live captions of course. Just add comments and your insights below would love to hear from you.

With credit to: @michael Vermeersch for your insights.

Biography

Sarah has worked in the IT & Telco industry for the last 25 years within sales and marketing as a senior director across multi-disciplines including marketing, sales, strategic planning and product marketing. Leading large multi disciplinary skilled teams to achieve and be successful personally and professionally. I have a passion for technology and innovation within digital accessibility and inclusion, based on experiences with autism and ADHD. Sarah is a TechWomen100 winner, Sales Technology & Automation AI Lead for the ISM Working Group, Fellow of the Institute of Sales Management, Board Trustee for Parenting Special Children.