University at Buffalo (UB)
Accessibility Best Practices for Social Media
To truly be inclusive, social media practitioners must follow accessibility best practices to ensure that all content is available for as many people as possible.
While we cannot control what accessibility features are on each social media platform, we can leverage the existing features to optimize our content, by following these best practices.
- Include alt text on photos whenever possible.
- If text is embedded on an image/graphic, be sure to include that text verbatim in the alt text.
- Not sure how to craft alt text? Axess labs has a helpful guide.
- Include closed captions on videos whenever possible.
>Captioning Resources - Use CamelCase on hashtags that contain multiple words.
- Avoid acronyms and initialisms in posts whenever possible, unless the acronym is widely recognizable (e.g. NASA).
- Make sure color contrast is accessible.
- Use a URL shortener to minimize characters.
- Avoid using special fonts and typefaces.
- Use emojis strategically and keep screen readers in mind.
- Avoid using special characters to create images.
- If posting a video, have captions/SRT files been included?
- Alt text is automatically populated on photos, but you can edit/improve by following these steps
- Did you add alt text to the photo?
- If posting a video, have text overlays been embedded or captions turned on?
- If publishing an Instagram story or reel:
- Is contrast between text and backgrounds accessible?
- Has the Captions Sticker been added to any video/audio content?
X/Twitter
- Did you include alt text, if posting a photo?
- If posting a video, have captions/SRT files been included?
- Did you place @ mentions and reach hashtags at the end of the post (if they aren’t being used as part of the post copy)?
- If posting a video, have captions/SRT files been included?
- If posting a photo, has alt text been included?
