Creating an Inclusive Environment on Social Media: Tips for Accessibility

In your role as a digital marketer, it’s crucial to make sure your message is seen by a broad and varied audience, addressing different needs. This can be achieved by embedding accessibility into your content strategy from the outset. Accessible content not only broadens your reach but also enhances the experience for every user.

Understanding Accessibility

But what does digital accessibility mean, exactly? How can you make sure your social media content is open to everyone?

At its core, accessibility means creating content that is meaningful, understandable, and usable for as wide an audience as possible. Consider these questions:

• Can individuals with visual impairments access the same information as those without any sight issues?

• Is your content clear and understandable for people with different cognitive abilities?

It’s critical to recognize that accessibility isn’t about catering to a few—it’s about ensuring everyone has access.

To achieve this, you must design and produce your content (whether text, images, or videos) to be easily accessible and engaging for users, regardless of their physical or cognitive abilities. This covers a broad spectrum, from visual and hearing impairments to cognitive and motor skills challenges.

Following established accessibility standards, such as the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), offers a roadmap to making your online content more inclusive. For additional resources, explore our accessibility guidelines and tune into our podcast episode on the critical role of digital accessibility.

The Importance of Accessibility

The significance of accessibility in digital marketing is growing for several reasons:

• Universal Benefits: Making content accessible not only extends its reach but also improves the overall user experience. Clear, well-structured text benefits all readers.

• SEO Advantages: Search engines favor content that adheres to usability best practices.

• Legal Compliance: Meeting accessibility standards can help organizations avoid legal complications and penalties.

• Brand Enhancement: Focusing on accessibility can positvely impact your brand’s reputation, promote customer loyalty, and contribute to a fairer digital space.

• Moral Obligation: It champions inclusivity, ensuring that everyone, regardless of their needs, has equal access to information and services, showing respect for all users.

Considerations for Accessibility

In forming an accessibility strategy, you need to take into account individuals with visual and hearing impairments, those with motor difficulties, and neurodivergent individuals, who may process information differently.

• Visual and hearing challenges: With over 2.2 billion people globally experiencing vision impairments (World Health Organization), incorporating features like alt text and screen readers is essential.

• Neurodiversity: Thinking styles such as dyslexia or autism fall under neurodiversity, emphasizing the value of recognizing and supporting alternative cognitive processing.

Crafting Accessible Social Media Posts

Let’s analyze an accessible social media post to understand why it works effectively.

This post is reader-friendly for several reasons:

• It uses uncluttered line spacing.
• Sentences are concise and direct.
• Hashtags are neatly listed at the end.
• The link provided is descriptive, steering clear of generic phrases like ‘click here’.

Remember, this post is devoid of emojis or mentions, which, while often effective, can be distracting in excess.

Not every social media post achieves this level of accessibility. For instance, Greggs originally used non-standard emojis that screen readers could not interpret correctly, showing the value of careful emoji selection and the importance of feedback for enhancing accessibility.

Guidelines for Accessible Social Posts

Let’s delve deeper into best practices for crafting accessible social media content.

1. Choose Clear Fonts

On social media platforms, your text will default to the platform’s established font. While some services allow customized formatting, avoid excessive styling as it can be hard to read and may not be screen reader friendly.

2. Thoughtful Color Use

Avoid relying solely on color to convey information. Choose text and background color combinations that ensure text is easy to read for everyone, including individuals with color vision deficiencies.

3. Include Descriptive Alt Text for Images

Provide alternative text for images to describe visual details for screen reader users. Keep alt text concise and avoid emojis, links, or hashtags within it.

4. Caption and Describe Videos

Add captions to all video content and consider audio descriptions to further explain on-screen activity, enhancing accessibility for users with varying needs.

5. Mindful Emoji Use

Emojis can add flavor to posts but use them judiciously to avoid clutter. Remember, screen readers describe emojis, so their placement and frequency matter.

6. Effective Hashtag Use

7. Embrace Inclusive Language and Imagery

Incorporate language and images that resonate with a diverse audience, reflecting your commitment to inclusivity.

8. Content Testing

Test your content with real-world scenarios in mind, ensuring it communicates effectively across diverse user groups and meets inclusivity standards.

Universal Content Accessibility Principles

General principles for enhancing the accessibility of digital marketing materials across platforms include using simple language, providing alt text for images, ensuring high contrast between text and background, offering captions and transcripts, avoiding flashing content, and engaging users with disabilities in the testing process.

Broadening Digital Marketing Skills

Understanding your audience’s diverse needs enables you to create more engaging, inclusive campaigns. Our Professional Diploma in Digital Marketing offers comprehensive training across all essential areas of digital marketing, equipping you with the knowledge and skills to excel in the field.