Social Media Accessibility Best Practices
Social Media Accessibility Guidelines
Social media accounts at Harvard must make every effort to make the content they share accessible to all audiences. The Harvard flagship social media accounts will only share, repost, and retweet accessible content.
See the complete Harvard University Digital Accessibility Policy and Digital Accessibility Policy Implementation, and view trainings offered by Digital Accessibility Services. There are also many good resources available at WebAIM.
Images: All images should have alternative text, or alt text, added. You can add alt text for images on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
- If image descriptions are automatically generated, make sure to review and modify the descriptions to capture the appropriate meaning and context.
- If you are including alternative text in the field provided by the social media platform, it is redundant to also include it within the post, as people using screen readers will then have to hear it twice.
- When placing text on a colored background, make sure the text is accessible by using a contrast checker.
Videos: All videos should have captions of the audio for the benefit of those without hearing, who are hard-of-hearing, and who are non-native speakers. Captions can be either closed captions (where a user can turn them on and off) or open captions (where the text is embedded into the video and cannot be turned on or off).
- Text on screen should be accessible. You can use a contrast checker to make sure the foreground and background colors have enough contrast.
- Videos and other media should not automatically play on default. This type of content can be a barrier for those with cognitive impairments, photosensitive epilepsy, ADHD, and other conditions. Users should have the ability to pause videos and other media. If media plays by default and this feature cannot be turned off, users should be made aware of this, e.g., “This video will automatically play in a new window.”
Animated GIFs: GIFs are not available to be used on all platforms, and not all platforms have a way to add alt text to GIFs. If a platform doesn’t allow for alt text on GIFs, the content may be difficult for individuals who rely on screen readers to perceive.
- Twitter does allow for alt text on both images and GIFs.
- Do not rely solely on animated GIF content in a social media post. When using animated GIFs, confirm that the post can be understood through its text content alone. You can also consider adding a brief description in brackets at the end of a post to account for this issue.
Hashtags
- Use what is known as “CamelCase” for hashtags in your social media posts, capitalizing the first letter of each word – #HarvardInSummer. This formatting means that people using screen readers will hear the words individually rather than as a long incoherent word, as is likely to be the case if no letters are capitalized.
- Limit the use of hashtags in each post, knowing that screen readers will read all hashtags out to users.
Emojis and Emoticons
- Screen readers will read emojis as their description, e.g., “clapping hands.” Because of this, it can be confusing if emojis are placed between words. Do not overuse emojis in social media posts, and place a space between each one.
- Emoticons, or representations of expressions created through a variety of keystrokes, e.g., :), will be read as “semicolon parenthesis” and should be used sparingly, if at all.
Infographics
- Make sure colors are well contrasted, so they are easy to decipher for people who are colorblind or have a visual impairment.
- Infographics are images and should include alt text.
Hyperlinks
- Keep URLs short whenever possible because screen readers will read them out to users, just as if they were words strung together in a long hashtag. There are many tools available that offer a free and easy way to shorten your URLs.
Plain language
- Avoid acronyms and make sure the meaning of your social media posts are clear.
- Photos and GIFs: Directly on Twitter, you can add alt text to photos and animated gifs by choosing “add description” after you’ve uploaded the file. Most social media management platforms offer alt text capabilities as well.
- Videos: All vides must be captioned. You can:
- Add captioning to videos by uploading .SRT files via the Media Studio Library
- Add captions directly to the video (“burned in” captions)
- Upload videos to YouTube and add captions there, then link to the video in your tweet
- Hashtags and emojis: Make sure to use CamelCase for hashtags, do not include too many hashtags or emojis, and do not place emojis between words. See the General section for more details.
- Mentions: Limit the number of handles you mention in your tweets, since screen readers will read them out.
- Unicode text: We do not recommend using unicode text since it is often inaccessible to screen reader users. Screen readers may skip the text entirely or read something irrelevant to the user.
- Images: Although Facebook automatically adds alt text, it is very often inaccurate, and we recommend editing the autogenerated alt text. You can do this by clicking “options” on the photo and choosing “change alt text.”
- Videos: You can add captions by uploading .SRT files. Alternatively, you can use the auto-generated captions created by Facebook, but make sure to edit the auto-generated captions to ensure they are accurate.
- Lives: It is important to provide live captions to live events whenever possible. If it is not possible to have captions as the event is proceeding, provide captions as soon as possible after the event.
- Unicode text: We do not recommend using unicode text since it is often inaccessible to screen reader users. Screen readers may skip the text entirely or read something irrelevant to the user.
- Images: Add alt text on all images. Some social media publishing tools allow for alt text to be added during the scheduling process. If publishing live, on the final screen before publishing your post, tap “Advanced Settings” at the bottom and “Write Alt Text” will be an option under the accessibility section.
- Videos: Videos posted as feed posts or Reels will need burned in captions. Captioning is available for Stories, but should be reviewed and edited before publishing.
- Hashtags and emojis: Make sure to use CamelCase for hashtags, do not include too many hashtags or emojis, and do not place emojis between words. See the General section for more details.
- Images: You can add alt text to photos by choosing “add alt text” after uploading. On desktop, if you don’t add alt text, LinkedIn may automatically generate it after you post. You can edit that text anytime.
- Videos: On desktop, you can add captions by uploading an .SRT file. Uploading via mobile does not allow for captions.
Harvard accounts should make every effort to caption videos on YouTube. Auto-generated captions are not sufficient to meet the accuracy standard of Harvard’s Policy without substantial editing and proofreading for quality assurance. See Multimedia Accessibilty for more captioning information.