Making Social Media work for Everyone: Your Guide to Inclusive Content

At Access4you, we're all about tearing down barriers and making sure everyone gets a seat at the table—yes, the digital table on social media too. It's clear that social media can still do a lot more to be truly accessible to everyone. The good news? There’s a lot we can do as content creators to change the game and make our posts more accessible.

First of all, why should we all consider making our content accessible? Because accessibility is good for everyone and benefits everyone, not just people with disabilities. Choosing the right design and giving image descriptions can be an advantage for every reader.

Let’s see the practicalities of a post and its visuals and then dive into the text itself.

Visuals and hashtags for everyone

Whether it’s a detailed infographic or a cute cat picture, visuals are everywhere on social media, and they're a big part of storytelling. But people who have visual impairments or are blind may miss out on that completely. That's where using contrasting colours that do not blend together, image descriptions and alt text come in. By adding descriptive text to your visuals, you're ensuring everyone gets the full picture.?

But what is the difference between image description and alt-text?

• Image description (ID)

An image description should be a longer text that gives a detailed account of the visual you used. You can also share it in the comments section, in addition to putting it at the end of the main text. To read this, you don’t need any special device or program; it is visible in a classic text format.

• Alt-text?

The alt-text is embedded in the image you post on social media, making it available and readable by screen readers. It’s a much shorter, more thorough description of the visuals compared to image descriptions. When writing alt-text, make sure your text is brief without detailing small bits and bobs but still gives an idea about the image.

Additionally, adding captions and descriptions for sounds in a video not only makes your content accessible but also more engaging for everyone.

When it comes to hashtags, #camelCase or #PascalCase (capitalizing the first letter of each word) is a small and easy change that makes a big difference for individuals using screen readers. These two improve accessibility by making the text more readable for screen readers as they provide clear word boundaries within variable names or identifiers, helping the tools pronounce each word distinctly.

Use the power of AI - mindfully

Tools like chatGPT can create alt text and image descriptions, giving you a solid starting point. However, the AI can make mistakes. This is why it is important to double-check the output to ensure it captures what you're really trying to show.

Tips for making a post text more inclusive

As we start writing a social media post with accessibility in mind, try to keep it simple. Although it’s tempting for social media marketers to use fancy fonts and formats with the help of text formatters. They might look cool, but they can cause trouble for screen readers.

Some social media platforms, such as Facebook, allow you to customize the background and colour of the post. In this case, the same rule applies here: use contrasting colours. This will help the visually impaired read the text more easily while still keeping the colourful design. Additionally, make sure to use a clear, easy-to-read font type wherever you can, such as Arial or Calibri.

About emojis

Everyone likes emojis to a certain extent. However, they can be a nuisance for screen readers. While you can use them sparingly, always avoid swapping out words entirely for an emoji and avoid using them in between sentences.

Of course, this is a non-exhaustive list of things we can do to make social media content more accessible. By making a few mindful tweaks to how we create content, we are opening it up to more people, and that’s something to be proud of. It’s all about building a more inclusive digital space, one post at a time.