By Alex Nicholl

As a visually impaired person starting my career in social media, I’ve heavily researched social media accessibility, and use my learnings in every post I make. Social platforms have leapt forward with accessibility features in recent times, but many creators and users haven’t always kept pace with this progress. Many disabilities such as visual impairments (VI), hearing impairments, dyslexia and more make it hard to navigate social media content and even harder to find material that caters to their needs.

Why Should We Focus on Making Content Accessible?

It’s a common misconception that people with disabilities don’t use social platforms, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, many individuals with disabilities are more active on social media than the average user. For them, social media platforms are not just tools for connection, information, and self-expression – they are spaces for building communities, amplifying their voices, and navigating a world that isn’t always accessible offline.

In the B2B world, social media can be valuable for similar reasons – building niche communities, sharing industry-specific knowledge and fostering meaningful connections. Yet, as content creators striving to extend our reach to wider audiences, by neglecting to consider accessibility, we can unintentionally exclude a significant portion of our target audiences. Of the global population of 8.025 billion, 10 percent are estimated to have dyslexia, whilst at least 2.2 billion people have a visual impairment and 1.5 billion people have some degree of hearing loss – making it highly likely your target audience includes individuals with disabilities.

By prioritising accessibility, we can create social media posts that resonate with and include everyone, ensuring that our messages truly reach their full potential. It’s also worth noting that algorithms tend to favour accessible content.

As such, here’s a rundown of what you can do to make your digital content a more inclusive experience for disabled and neurodivergent individuals.

Alt Text Image Descriptions

Alt text is a brief description of an image that screen readers can read aloud for people with low or no vision. A screen reader is assistive technology that reads all the text on a screen, and when images include alt text, it reads this description as well. This ensures that visually impaired users have the same understanding of the content as sighted users. And, added bonus, this can also help with SEO.

Anyone could describe a photo, but crafting good alt text needs to keep the format in mind. Everything you type will be read aloud and this will take time. Alt text should be succinct, use plain language, while still conveying all the information needed to grasp the importance of the image. Think of the who/what/where/where/when/why to figure out the key information, then add relevant details to flesh out the image.

All major social media platforms have alt text capabilities if you know where to look.

• On Twitter and LinkedIn, add a photo to the post then hover over it to show the ‘Add Alt Text’ button.
• On Instagram, you can add alt text in a post’s Advanced Settings.
• On Facebook, the alt text is hidden behind the three-dot menu.

Video Captions

As well as supporting blind/VI consumers, captions could earn you the view of someone watching in a crowded place, late at night or anywhere where audio-focused videos might get skipped past. Alongside this, recent studies show that adding captioning can increase online view time by up to 40%, so it’s great for audience retention too. Video descriptions and captions are ideal for supporting hearing impaired viewers, but can also help people with audio processing issues to follow your content better.

There are two main different ways to go about this. The first (and easier) option is editing captions directly onto a video, typically at the bottom of the screen like traditional subtitles. Modern software can drastically cut the time spent on this, as software such as Premier Pro and CapCut can create auto-captions using speech recognition. They should be checked thoroughly though, as the speech recognition definitely isn’t perfect.

If you’re short on space or can’t work captions into a video stylistically, some platforms have caption options built into their UI. While it’s a little more complicated than on-screen captioning, you can create SRT files (specifically for captioning) which can be added to videos on platforms such as Twitter/X, LinkedIn and YouTube. In either case, captions should be accurate, well-timed and include audio descriptions of any relevant sounds (bells, beeps, chimes or even a sigh) along with the text – if it’s important to an audience’s experience, include it.

Font Readability

Font choice can have a massive impact on how easy it is to consume the content for people with VIs or dyslexia. While Comic Sans is hailed as a dyslexia-friendly font, it isn’t necessarily the most business-like. Avoiding fancy fonts and opting for something clear – especially sans-serif ones like Arial, Calibri, Open Sans, and Verdana – not only appear more professional but also enhance the user experience by improving readability.

Contrast

While contrast should be considered in branding guidelines, you might also want to check that your text and core visual elements stand out enough whether you have a white background, a dark background or even if you’ve opted for a bold neon palette. Introducing social media tools such as this handy contrast tool from WebAIM can test out hex values so you can make sure your background, text and graphic elements don’t blend into each other and cause accessibility issues.

Hashtags

Hashtags are key for navigation and are everywhere but can be another source of unexpected issues. Capitalising the first letter of each word produces distinct words from a ‘lettery mush’ and ensures that a screen reader catches the right words, as well as the people reading them. #weareatwork could theoretically be read as ‘wear eat work’ by a screen reading voice but #WeAreAtWork will be read quickly and correctly by anyone.

Keep Accessibility in Mind

Digital accessibility can be confusing with so many needs to balance and learning ever-evolving new technologies. However, by advocating for accessibility and incorporating it into your social media content, you can support your business and help make the digital world a more inclusive space. And who knows? These efforts might just help you secure that sale or attract a new loyal reader!