How to Make Your Social Media Posts Accessible

Social media is how many people discover brands, follow news, and connect with communities. But for the roughly 1.3 billion people worldwide who live with a disability, many of the most popular social platforms still present significant barriers.

Images without alternative text are invisible to screen readers. Videos without captions exclude deaf and hard-of-hearing users. Hashtags written in all-lowercase run together into one unreadable word. Complex emojis, when read aloud by a screen reader, produce a stream of verbose descriptions that disrupt the flow of the message.

None of this requires expensive tooling or a content redesign. Most social media accessibility improvements take under a minute to apply and require nothing more than a change in habit.

Alt text for images

Alternative text (alt text) is a short written description of an image. Screen readers read it aloud when they encounter an image, allowing blind and low-vision users to understand what the image shows.

Most major platforms now support native alt text, though how you add it varies.

Instagram

When uploading a photo, tap Advanced settings > Write Alt Text. If you post without adding alt text, Instagram generates it automatically using AI — but the auto-generated descriptions are often vague or inaccurate (“image may contain: person, outdoors”). Write your own.

X (formerly Twitter)

When attaching an image to a post, look for the “Add description” link below the image preview. You have up to 1,000 characters. Use them to describe what the image shows and why it’s relevant to the post.

After uploading an image in the post composer, click the edit icon (pencil) on the image. A field for alt text will appear.

Facebook

Facebook enables auto alt text by default. To customize it: after uploading a photo, click Edit photo > Alt text > Override generated alt text.

Writing good alt text

Good alt text describes the relevant content of the image, not just its visual properties. Ask: what would a user miss if they couldn’t see this image?

“A smiling woman using a laptop at a cafe” is descriptive but doesn’t tell you why the image is in the post
“A QualiBooth dashboard showing an accessibility score of 94 on a laptop screen” tells you what the image is communicating
Decorative images that add no information don’t need alt text — but on social media, almost every image you choose to post is informational

Don’t start with “Image of” or “Photo of” — screen readers already announce that it’s an image. Start with the content.

Video captions

Captions benefit deaf and hard-of-hearing users, non-native speakers, people watching in noisy or quiet environments, and anyone who finds it easier to read along with audio.

Auto-captions are now available on most platforms — YouTube, TikTok, Instagram Reels, Facebook, and LinkedIn all generate them automatically. But auto-captions contain errors, especially with technical terms, names, accents, and fast speech. Always review and edit them before publishing.

Closed captions (CC) are the accessible standard: they can be turned on and off, and they carry speaker identification and sound descriptions when relevant (e.g., “[upbeat music]”).

Open captions (burned into the video) ensure captions always appear — useful for platforms where the CC toggle is hidden or non-obvious — but they can’t be turned off.

For video content with significant spoken content, also provide a transcript. Transcripts help users who cannot easily watch video at all, and they’re indexed by search engines, which is a bonus.

Hashtag capitalization (CamelCase)

This is a small change with a large impact. Hashtags written in all lowercase — #webdesigntrends, #accessibilitytips — are read as a single word by screen readers. #WebDesignTrends and #AccessibilityTips, written with an initial capital for each word, are read correctly.

This is called CamelCase, and it’s the standard for accessible hashtags. It costs nothing and takes seconds.

Inaccessible: #digitalmarketing #contentcreation #socialmediatips
Accessible:   #DigitalMarketing #ContentCreation #SocialMediaTips

Emoji placement and quantity

Emojis are read aloud by screen readers using their Unicode description. A single rocket emoji 🚀 is announced as “rocket.” A row of twelve 🎉 emojis is read as “party popper party popper party popper party popper party popper party popper party popper party popper party popper party popper party popper party popper.”

Two guidelines:

Use emojis sparingly in body text. A decorative row of stars or hearts creates friction for screen reader users.
Place emojis at the end of a sentence or paragraph rather than in the middle of text. Screen readers interrupt the reading flow to announce each emoji.

Avoid using emojis as a substitute for words. “I 💯 agree with this” reads differently than intended when the emoji is verbalized as “hundred points.”

Plain language and reading level

Cognitive accessibility is part of web accessibility, though it gets less attention. Posts written in complex, jargon-heavy language are harder to understand for users with cognitive or learning disabilities, users who are not native speakers, and users with attention difficulties.

Aim for:

Short sentences (under 20 words where possible)
Common words over specialist terminology
One idea per sentence
Active voice (“We launched a feature” vs “A feature has been launched by us”)

This improves readability for everyone, not just users with disabilities.

Audio descriptions for video

Audio description (AD) is a narration track added to video that describes significant visual content — what’s happening on screen when the audio doesn’t tell you. It’s essential for blind and low-vision users watching video.

Most social platforms don’t have a native audio description feature. For videos where visual content carries meaning (a product demonstration, a tutorial, a montage), either:

Include verbal description in the main audio (“I’m clicking the orange button in the top right corner…”)
Publish a separate version of the video with audio description added

Platform accessibility features

Major platforms have invested meaningfully in accessibility tooling, though they vary:

Platform	Native alt text	Auto-captions	Audio description
Instagram	Yes	Reels only	No native support
X (Twitter)	Yes	No	No native support
LinkedIn	Yes	Yes	No native support
YouTube	Yes	Yes	Yes (via separate track)
TikTok	Yes	Yes	No native support
Facebook	Yes (auto)	Yes	No native support

Don’t rely on platform defaults. Auto-generated alt text is rarely accurate enough to substitute for human-written descriptions. Always review and customize.

A quick checklist for every post

Before you publish, run through this:

Every image has meaningful alt text (written by a human, not auto-generated)
Every video has reviewed and corrected captions
Multi-word hashtags use CamelCase
Emojis are placed at the end of text, not mid-sentence
Emoji quantity is limited to what adds value
Long-form video has a transcript or thorough verbal description in the audio
Link URLs are wrapped in descriptive anchor text (where the platform allows)
Language is plain and direct

Social media accessibility is one of the easiest places to make meaningful improvements with almost no additional effort. The habits take a week to build and they make your content genuinely more useful for everyone who encounters it.

Why social media accessibility matters