12 Jan Accessibility on Social Media: Best Practices
The Social Media landscape is composed of people. Real people with real lives, unique demands and visible and invisible disabilities. According to the World Health Organization, 285 million people around the world are visually impaired, and 360 million have disabling hearing loss (source: Sprinklr). Are any people from these communities part of your network audience? We bet they are.
Ensuring information on your Social Media networks is accessible and inclusive of all users is one of the 2023 Social Media trends that will dominate the digital sphere.
A survey of Facebook users in 50 countries found that more than 30 per cent of people reported difficulty with at least one of the following: seeing, hearing, speaking, organising thoughts, walking, or grasping with their hands (source: Site Improve). That means you could be missing out on connecting with millions of social media users.
And while the main use case for accessibility features is to enable people living with disabilities to use Social Media, consume and understand your content, using them properly also provides broader business benefits, including greater reach, higher engagement, and better SEO.
For example, adding captions to videos and photos will not only improve the accessibility of your content but also enable more people to understand and engage with it.
Luckily for us, marketers, event owners or content creators, the demand is generalised. Each Social Media network has been compelled to provide tools and advice for users to optimise their content in this direction.
Below, you will find a list of key aspects to take into consideration when posting on Social Media:
- Writing the Alt Text (alternative text) of your post is important for people who may not see images due to low connectivity. It also allows screen readers and artificial intelligence to describe photos to people who are visually impaired.
- Image and video descriptions make it easy to offer text-based captions for screen readers and other assistive technology. Including them is a huge consideration for low-vision users and those who use assistive technology.
- Video titles and captions are crucial in audiovisual content, not only for people with hearing disabilities but also for anyone watching videos in mute and/or noisy places. Great news: many social platforms already have an automatic captioning option in their advanced settings.
- Using contrasting colours will ease the reading of people with sight and reading disabilities. Additionally, it's essential to avoid relying solely on colour to convey meaning, as it may not be accessible to a significant portion of your audience.
- Fonts should follow the line of simplicity. Choosing the ones that are native to social media platforms (sans serif fonts) is always a preference. Also, you should consider the size of the font and the colours in the background, resourcing the highlighter effect when necessary.
- Audio descriptions for video are ideal for those who can hear but are unable to see. The vocalised words will help to explain what is happening on the screen and make sure that the visually impaired don’t miss a thing.
- Using simple imagery and graphics is recommended to make it easier for assistive technologies to interpret photos for people who are visually impaired - especially when the image doesn’t have an Alt Text. Also, it can help to improve the load time of your content pieces.
- While copywriting, make sure you use short sentences and only a few emojis to ease the reading of people with dyslexia or visual disabilities. Organising content in paragraphs and using spacing and bullets to organise your information are also useful and simple things to consider while writing for Social Media.
Each social network has its own Help Center offering detailed and up-to-date directions to optimise content within the platform. It’s important to stay informed about accessibility updates on every channel where your brand has an active presence. If feeling incomplete, don’t hesitate to ask for feedback from real users with diverse disabilities.
Milestone Creative is dedicated to improving its Inclusion Policy and advising its clients on incorporating accessibility practices into their marketing strategies. If you require assistance in addressing the increasing demand for accessibility on social media, please do not hesitate to contact us at marketing@milestonecreative.com.au