Overview
Different social media platforms have different accessibility features to make your content accessible for all types of users. Most social media doesn't automatically apply these features, so content creators need to be proactive in making content accessible. This guide goes over social media-specific properties for alternative text, video captions, text, and visuals as well as platform-specific features.
Alternative Text
- Follow alternative text guidelines.
- Facebook and Instagram add machine-generated alt text that you can edit.
- Turn on alternative text for images in your Twitter settings.
- Make sure to check and edit the auto-generated alt text.
Video Captions
- You can use YouTube’s captioning services for Facebook videos, explained in the video accessibility guide.
- Add caption files when able. If caption files can’t be added, use the post’s description box to add alternative text or a link to a transcript.
- Use a larger text option for captions and make sure there is good contrast between the background and the captions.
- To make Stories and TikToks completely accessible, upload them to YouTube and caption them there.
- Turn on alternative text for images in your Twitter settings.
Accessible Text
When you post a hyperlink, indicate whether it leads to an [AUDIO], [PIC], or [VIDEO] file and follow link text guidelines.
- Include hashtags in your post to make them easier to locate.
- Put hashtags after the photo caption or description, or in a comment if you have many hashtags.
- Capitalize the first letter of each word in a hashtag.
- Avoid using acronyms when possible.
Accessible Visuals
- Plan Stories to make sense chronologically.
- Make sure photos being posted are of good quality and lighting to improve contrast.
- Use the largest possible text size and ensure that the text is legible against your background image.
Platforms
To access the feature guides specific to each platform, you can visit the links below.
- Adjusting Text Size for Instagram
- Using a Screen Reader with Instagram
- Editing Alternative Text
- Captions and Subtitles for IGTV
- Facebook Accessibility Center
- Facebook Accessibility Account
- Adding Captions to Your Video
- Adding Captions to Your Page’s Video
- Turning off Video Autoplay
- Changing how Captions Appear