MAE | Social Media Manager Accessibility in Social Media: Current Best Practices
When I accepted a role at the Canopy by Hilton Ithaca Downtown as their Sales Coordinator and Social Media Champion last year, my first order of business was to ensure that we were being inclusive, so that our social media content would be available to everyone. As a new property, with fresh social media accounts, we were granted a prime opportunity to be accessible from the start. But even if you already have active social media accounts, it is not too late to start following better accessibility practices.
However, with these practices only just beginning to gain traction, and always changing, finding current best practices wasn’t an easy task.
I decided to compile a list of several suggestions, predominantly for posting images and text, which I had originally posted to an exclusive community hub, and – with some updated information and edits – would like to share what I learned here to a wider audience.
{These are current as of July 2020.}
Some General Best Practices:
- Screen readers read emoji as text (e.g. “red heart”), thus it makes sense to limit emoji usage in a main post (Imagine hearing “yellow star” thirty times!). This function does, however, offer a great way to take advantage of limited characters.
- Keep your alt text descriptions concise, yet impactful
- Considering SEO, you have the ability to use keywords (and company/brand names) in alt text as well
- Images are already identified as such by screen readers, so there’s no reason to start alternative text with “Image/Picture/Photo of…”
- Edit automatically generated alternative text to provide context and/or more description.
- When posting a hyperlink, indicate what type of media it leads to (e.g. [PIC], [VIDEO])
- Use a URL shortener to minimize the amount of characters in a hyperlink
- Add hashtags and mentions at the end of your posts, or place them inside of a comment
- Camel case your hashtags, this helps screen readers differentiate words (“#BlackGirlMagic” as opposed to “#blackgirlmagic”)
- Minimize the use of acronyms
- Avoid using ableist language
- Representation matters – showcase diversity without being exploitative
Accessing and Utilizing Alt-Text Features Using Native Apps:
Enabling Accessibility Features
In menu, navigate to “Settings & Privacy”
Under the “General” heading, choose the “Accessibility” option
Select necessary checkbox to enable accessibility features, save
Adding Alt Text via Desktop
Compose new Tweet, add image as usual
Choose “Edit” function, and ALT tab OR the “Add Description” option under the image
Enter description in the field, select “Save” at the top right corner, send Tweet
Adding Alt Text via Mobile Application
Compose new Tweet, add image as usual
Locate “Add Description” near the bottom of the image, and select it
Confirm addition of Alt Text
Enter description in the field, select “Done” at the top right hand corner, send Tweet
From the New Post screen, navigate to “Advanced Settings”
Under the “Accessibility” heading, choose “Write Alt Text”
Enter image description in the field, and save
Adding Alt Text via Desktop
Note: You are only able to add alt text before posting a photo, if you’re using Facebook via computer
Editing Alt Text via Desktop
To edit alt text after your photo is posted, go to the post and select the photo, which will open in Theater
Hover over the image, select “Options” to access the menu, select “Change Alt Text”, confirm “Override Generated Alt Text”
Enter description in the field, and save
Editing Alt Text via Mobile Application
Navigate to the post, select the photo, which will open in Theater
Tap the three dots in the upper right corner to gain access to a menu
Choose “Edit alt text”
Enter image description in the field, and save
