Accessibility and Inclusive PracticeDigitalSocial MediaSocial Media

Inclusive Social Media Content

Social media symbols in a mindmap

The importance of inclusive social media messaging:

Inclusive social media messaging is vital for any organisation in its communications to its employees, visitors, and customers.  Did you know that 4 million people abandoned a retail website due to poor accessibility (Source: Click Away Pound Survey 2019). By showing inclusive social media messaging your organisation is showing its commitment to accessibility and intersectional inclusive practice and it attracts potential volunteers and employees to your organisation.

The importance of social media and inclusive content blog here: https://embed.org.uk/blog/f/social-media-%E2%80%93-keeping-connected-during-challenging-times

If you need support with inclusive language and communications we can help via DCNs cross-partner EMBED via https://embed.org.uk/

New: Inclusive Social Media Podcast (with captions):

This podcast with Sarah Simcoe (Founder of EMBED) and Becki Morris (Director of DCN) discusses:

  • How inclusive social media benefits museums of all sizes and the Heritage Sector in marketing, outreach, and business development.
  • It contains key observations and practical tips on planning inclusive content.

Link to podcast here: https://embed.org.uk/embed-talks

These are a selection of tips for various social media platforms:
If you know of any more, do let us know via info@musedcn.org.uk

Alternative text on image descriptions:

https://help.twitter.com/en/using-twitter/picture-descriptions
RNIB Alt-text guidance here:

Adding alternative text on Instagram:

Scope The Big Hack: Adding Alt-Text to Instagram:

Triggers: 

Consider trigger warnings particularly if you are using any flash images or any information.

There is guidance to stop auto-play of films via twitter here: https://help.twitter.com/en/using-twitter/twitter-videos

Hashtags:

Remember to capitalise the first letter of each word in the hashtag: #InclusivePractice

Captioning:

Auto-generating captions on Youtube are not accurate and therefore won’t be accessible to a number of audiences.

FREE Training on adding captions to your content with StageText: https://www.stagetext.org/news/complete-our-free-digital-subtitling-training/

How to add your own captions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJGiS83eQLk

Twitter: Go to Twitter Help Center to accessibility in the search engine, which has a suite of instructions to support you in creating accessible content Link here: https://help.twitter.com/en/using-twitter/accessibility-features

Vimeo: 
useful video on adding captions to Vimeo:

Guidance:

Stagetext has a range of guidance and good practice on captions for content.
You can find them here: https://www.stagetext.org/for-venues/resources/

Accessibility to Film and Video for visually impaired and blind people via Vocaleyes: https://t.co/Vjw4iFOiCp?amp=1

Podcasts:

Remember that people will use transcriptions and captions to support any sensory processing difficulties and if they are d/Deaf, deafened, and hard of hearing:

Transcription tools:

Otter: https://otter.ai/login 
Transcribe: https://transcribe.wreally.com/

Timed tweets:  Social Media Management Tools

Image description via Hootsuite: https://www.lireo.com/part-4-alternative-text-for-images-hootsuite-announces-support/

Image description via Tweetdeck:  As you upload your image, ‘add description’ will appear at the bottom of the image.

General tips and advice:

RNIB including how-tos: https://www.rnib.org.uk/rnibconnect/technology/making-your-social-media-accessible

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