Improving accessibility doesn’t require a major strategy overhaul. A few simple tweaks to your process is all it takes to make your content both captivating and accessible to all.
Social media managers have a lot to juggle—content creation, algorithm changes, and engagement strategies all demand attention. With so much going on, accessibility can sometimes be overlooked.
But when social posts aren’t accessible, you risk leaving out a significant part of your audience. Potential customers, fans, and community members may struggle to engage with your content, limiting your reach and impact.
The good news? Improving accessibility doesn’t require a major strategy overhaul. A few simple tweaks to your process can make your content both captivating and accessible to all.
Ready to create more inclusive social posts without adding hours to your workflow? Here are nine practical tips to help you reach more people, boost engagement, and build an inclusive digital presence.
1. Ensure you have enough color contrast
Ever squinted at barely-there-light-yellow fonts on a white Instagram background? This design faux pas creates barriers for people with visual impairments, color blindness, or those viewing your content in bright sunlight.
To keep web content accessible, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) specify a minimum contrast ratio of 4:5:1 for standard text and 3:1 for large text. This ensures readability across devices and for users with different visual capabilities. Tools like Contrast Checker or Adobe Color can verify that your contrast meets these standards before you post.
Pastel palettes might look tempting, but if your audience can’t read your text, it’s goodbye engagement. Nearly 29% of the U.S. population has a disability—that’s close to 61 million people. Opt for bold, clear contrast that ensures everyone can experience your content.
2. Add alt text and audio descriptions to visual content
By 2050, vision loss will impact 600 million people around the world. This means that your impressive visuals might go unnoticed without the proper descriptions. Alternative text and audio descriptions bridge the gap—alt text provides screen readers with text-based image descriptions and audio descriptions narrate visual elements in videos for those who can’t see them.
Write alt text that’s concise (125 characters or less) yet descriptive, focusing on what’s important in the image. Keep audio descriptions brief, highlighting essential visuals that tell your story. When crafting, ask yourself: “What visual information would someone miss that’s critical to understanding this content?”
Most social media platforms now offer built-in text fields, which make it easy to ensure your visuals reach everyone in your audience, regardless of their visual ability.
3. Include closed captions in videos
People watch 85% of Facebook videos on mute. And it’s not just those with hearing loss—more than 50% of Gen Z and millennials routinely use subtitles regardless of their hearing ability. Captions make your content accessible to people with hearing loss and boost engagement for everyone silently scrolling through their feeds.
When creating captions, go beyond transcribing speech. Include relevant background sounds in brackets like [doorbell rings] or [dramatic music], and use speaker identifiers when multiple people are talking. Position your captions strategically so they don’t overlap with platform elements like the TikTok username or action buttons.
Remember that contrast matters here, too. Opt for white text with black outlines or a semi-transparent background for maximum readability against any video background.
4. Use emojis thoughtfully
Emojis add personality to your posts, but they can wreak havoc on screen readers. Each emoji triggers a detailed verbal description, so that row of 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 becomes a robotic voice saying, “fire, fire, fire, fire, fire,” disrupting the flow of your content and sending people to the fire exit.
Use emojis intentionally. Limit yourself to one of two per sentence, and avoid placing them in the middle of text where they interrupt the natural reading flow. Keep your profile and display names emoji-free to make it easy for screen readers to pronounce them. Some emojis convey meaning through color (like red heart vs. blue heart) and may not look different to colorblind users. Context matters when you select emojis!
5. Simplify your hashtags
On the subject of things that confuse screen readers: hashtag chains. Whether you love them or love to hate them, they can make screen readers speak gibberish. When asked to read a hashtag, screen readers attempt to pronounce it as one nonsensical word, which dilutes your message. For users with visual impairments, this creates a frustrating, disjointed experience.
Capitalize the first letter of each word (camelcase) to make hashtags more accessible—#TheBestSocialMediaTipsEver is a lot clearer than #thebestsocialmediatipsever. Keep your hashtags simple and concise whenever possible. Instead of cramming multiple concepts into one monster hashtag, use a few separate ones.
Limit your hashtag count, too. A handful of relevant hashtags (3-5) are more effective than 20 random ones. Accessibility isn’t just about being inclusive, but about creating a cleaner, more professional feed your audience will appreciate.
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Get Started for FREE6. Make sure your word choices are inclusive
The language in your posts can alienate your audience without you even realizing it. People-first language (saying “person with a disability” rather than “disabled person”) acknowledges the person before their condition and helps create more respectful content.
Watch out for these commonly used but exclusionary terms:
- Blind spot or tone deaf: Try “oversight” or “insensitive” instead.
- Crazy or insane: Opt for “wild,” “surprising,” or “intense.”
- Handicapped: Use “accessible” (as in “accessible parking”).
- Stand up for: “Speak up for” or “advocate for” are more inclusive alternatives.
- OCD: Unless you’re referring to the actual condition, use “detail-oriented” or “particular.”
Regularly review your content for these subtle exclusions. It shows a genuine commitment to reaching everyone in your audience.
7. Consider inclusivity when selecting creative partners
Partnering with diverse creators makes your content more inclusive, so it’s authentic and relatable to wider audiences. When brands collaborate with creators who have disabilities or represent diverse communities, they gain valuable perspectives that can improve their content strategy.
Virgin Media’s Work with Me campaign is a great example. The campaign featured scope-disabled influencers and highlighted workplace accessibility. It reached millions while driving meaningful conversations about inclusive employment.
Calvin Klein also partnered with Chella Man, an artist, activist, and actor with hearing loss. The company amplified diverse voices through its global platform, donating to the onePULSE Foundation.
When choosing partners, look beyond follower counts to find creators who bring diverse lived experiences to your content. These collaborations signal to audiences that your brand values authentic representation, not just performative inclusion that checks diversity boxes.
8. Don’t rely on color alone to convey meaning
About 300 million people have some form of color vision deficiency. The red error messages and green success notifications on your website? Certain audiences may not be able to see them. When color is your only indicator of meaning, your users have to guess.
Always pair color cues with additional indicators. Add a checkmark icon alongside green text for success states or an exclamation mark with red for errors. For data visualizations, add patterns, textures, or labels directly on charts instead of relying on color-coded legends. Before posting infographics or data charts, run them through tools like Coblis or Color Oracle to see how they appear to users with different types of color blindness.
Good design is visually appealing and universally understandable.
9. Avoid flashing or strobing animations
Last but not least, let’s talk about movement in your content. Eye-catching strobe lights grab your audience’s attention. But they can also trigger seizures in the 52 million people worldwide living with epilepsy. Of these 1 in 100 people, up to 5% have photosensitive epilepsy. Flashing lights between 5-30 Hz (flashes per second) can trigger seizures, and these effects are common in trending social content.
Before you publish animations, make sure they don’t have rapid flashes, strobe effects, or quick transitions between high-contrast colors. If your content does include triggering elements, add explicit content warnings and avoid autoplaying the content. Most platforms now offer sensitive content features, like TikTok’s photosensitivity warning and Instagram’s “sensitive content” toggle.
Beyond triggering seizures, fast-moving animations and gifs can also overwhelm neurodivergent users and those with vestibular disorders. When in doubt, opt for smoother transitions.
Challenges to creating accessible social posts (and how to overcome them)
Creating accessible social media content can feel overwhelming—from writing descriptive alt text to captioning videos. And getting your team aligned on accessibility isn’t a quick conversation.
These tips can help streamline these challenges without sacrificing the quality of your digital content.
Supercharge accessibility with AI-generated captions
AI tools have revolutionized digital accessibility, making caption generation faster and more accurate than ever before. Tools like Kapwing’s auto-caption feature, YouTube’s built-in captioning, or Descript’s captioning capabilities can generate accurate captions in seconds.
While AI-generated captions still need humans to review for nuance and accuracy, they are an excellent starting point. Captions can reduce the time it takes to make your video content accessible.
Bake accessibility into the review process
Making accessibility a formal part of your content review process ensures nothing slips by unnoticed. Create a simple accessibility checklist that covers contrast, alt text, captions, and inclusive language, and make it a standard part of every content approval.
With Sked Social’s customizable approval workflows, you can assign specific team members to verify accessibility elements before posts go live. This approach distributes responsibility across your team, and Sked’s built-in commenting features flag potential issues in the platform.
Make your social media content more inclusive with Sked Social
Accessible content is human. It’s also a savvy marketing strategy that expands your brand reach. With Sked’s intuitive platform, you can kiss those clunky approval workflows goodbye and pour your creativity into content that connects with everyone in your audience.
Ready to make accessibility a natural part of your social media flow? Start a free trial and discover how Sked makes inclusive social media feel effortless.
