How Do I Make My Social Media Videos Accessible?

Making your social media videos accessible is crucial for reaching a broader audience and ensuring your content can be understood and enjoyed by everyone, including individuals with disabilities. By implementing a few key strategies, you can significantly enhance the inclusivity of your video content.

Why Social Media Video Accessibility Matters

Creating accessible social media videos not only demonstrates commitment to inclusivity but also expands your reach, improves SEO, and provides a better user experience for all. Accessible content often ranks higher in search results and is more engaging overall.

Key Strategies for Accessible Social Media Videos

To make your social media videos truly accessible, focus on clear communication, providing alternatives for visual and auditory information, and using formatting that aids readability.

1. Use Clear and Simple Language

Practical Insight: Always prioritize clarity and simplicity in your video scripts, voiceovers, and accompanying text.

• Avoid jargon: Use plain language that is easy for everyone to understand, regardless of their background or familiarity with the topic.
• Be concise: Get straight to the point and avoid overly complex sentence structures.
• Consider your audience: Write and speak in a way that resonates with a diverse range of users.

2. Provide Text Alternatives for Audio and Visuals

One of the most vital steps for video accessibility is ensuring that auditory and visual information is available in text format.

Subtitles, Closed Captions, and Transcripts

• Subtitles: These translate spoken dialogue into text, primarily for non-native speakers or those watching with sound off.
• Closed Captions (CC): Far more comprehensive, CC includes spoken dialogue, sound effects (e.g., [music playing], [dog barking]), and speaker identification. They can be turned on or off by the viewer.
  • Tip: When creating captions, ensure they are accurate, synchronized with the video, and clearly describe all relevant auditory information.
• Transcripts: A full text version of all spoken words and significant non-speech audio (like sound effects) in a video. Transcripts are particularly useful for individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing, or for those who prefer to read the content at their own pace.
  • Solution: Offer a downloadable transcript link in your video description or comments section.

Descriptive Text for Visuals (Alt Text & Descriptions)

While primarily associated with images, the principles of descriptive text apply to the visual elements of your video posts too, such as thumbnails or accompanying images.

• Write Alt Text: For your video's thumbnail or any images accompanying your video post, provide concise yet descriptive alt text. This allows screen readers to describe the visual content to users who are blind or have low vision.
  • Example: For a video about cooking, the thumbnail alt text could be: "Close-up of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies on a cooling rack."
• Turn On or Edit Alt Text: Most social media platforms have options to add or edit alt text. Always utilize these features for your visual content.
• Describe the Content: Beyond alt text, use your video's description field to provide a more detailed summary of what happens visually in the video, especially if the visuals convey important information not explicitly stated in the audio.

3. Enhance Readability for All

Formatting choices can significantly impact how easily your content is consumed by screen readers and individuals with cognitive disabilities.

Opt for Camel Case with Hashtags

• Camel case (or Pascal case) is when you capitalize the first letter of each word in a multi-word hashtag (e.g., #SocialMediaAccessibility instead of #socialmediaaccessibility).
• Why it matters: Screen readers often read hashtags as a single, jumbled word if not formatted with camel case, making them unintelligible. Camel case helps screen readers pronounce each word correctly.

4. Offer Content in Diverse Formats

Practical Insight: Not everyone consumes content in the same way. Providing options caters to different preferences and needs.

• Multiple Formats: Consider offering your video content in other formats where appropriate. This might include:
  • A blog post summarizing the video.
  • An audio-only version (podcast).
  • Infographics summarizing key points.

5. Sources and Resources

Solution: Always provide links to sources or additional resources relevant to your video's content. This allows users to delve deeper into the topic if they wish, and helps verify information. For accessibility, this can include links to:

• Tools for captioning.
• Guidelines for accessible content creation.
• Organizations promoting digital accessibility.

Here's a quick summary table of key actions:

By consistently applying these practices, you can ensure your social media videos are inclusive, reaching and engaging the widest possible audience.