There are more opportunities than ever for creators, brands, and marketers to be more mindful of inclusivity for users of all abilities.
In the past year, most social platforms have made great strides in updating their features to be more accessible. From auto-generated captions for the hearing impaired, to image descriptions for the blind, to innovations in voice recognition, here are some of the ways you can make your social media campaigns more inclusive.
Auto-Generated Video Captions
Captions enable users with hearing impediments to consume and enjoy videos on all platforms. Text appears across the screen transcribing what is being said aloud into written words.
Auto-generated captions are now available on pretty much every major social platform. Automatic closed captioning is now available on Facebook Live and IGTV, and there is now a dedicated closed caption button on Instagram Stories that automatically transcribes a video’s sound into written captions that appear in real-time.
Previously, if users wanted to caption their stories, they would have to manually enter the text. Now, the auto-generated captions have made users much more likely to take the time to caption with the click of a button.
Click to learn how to add captions to videos on:
Image Descriptions
Image descriptions allow users who are blind or visually impaired to hear an audio description of an image or video. Just because someone may have low or no vision doesn’t mean they don’t want to interact with your posts! Twitter was the first platform to incorporate image descriptions, but since then all the other major social media platforms have updated to include that feature.
While some platforms have AI that generates “Automatic Alternative Text” without users needing to add an additional description, it’s still a good idea to edit or write your own descriptions to make sure your content is being represented correctly for users of all abilities.
Click to learn how to add image descriptions on:
For some users, typing text on a small phone screen is difficult, or even impossible. Speech-to-text features where users can speak into their devices and then have that speech translated into text allows users to send and reply to written communications without needing lightning-fast thumbs. This convenient feature has become popular with users of all abilities, allowing messages to be written and sent quickly and easily.
Capitalise the first letter in your #Hashtags
It may be news to social media users who have never used “screen reader” software, but capitalising the first letter of your hashtags makes your posts more accessible to visually impared persons. This is because the software installed on the computer recognises capital letters as the beginning of a new sentence or phrase, enabling the software to pronounce the text correctly instead of a jumble of letters that run together without clear separation.
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This article was originally featured on TaggerMedia.com on June 07, 2021.