Create Accessible Social Media Posts

MU leverages social media for engagement, fostering connections, and communicating emergencies. Utilizing accessibility features on social media platforms is crucial for ensuring posts are accessible, alongside creating accessible content from the outset.

• Add Alternative Text Descriptions to All Images
• Add Captions to Videos
• Emojis – Use Them Sparingly
• Never Use Special Fonts
• Use CamelCase for Hashtags
• Use Appropriate Color Contrast
• Additional Resources

Add Alternative Text Descriptions to All Images

The backend of every social media publishing site offers an area to enter alternative text on messages.  

• Be concise but descriptive (keep under 125 characters as a best practice).
• Do not use phrases like “image of” or “picture of” (screen readers announce it automatically as an image). This applies to GIFs as well. When adding alternative text to a GIF, please contextualize its meaning.
• If the image conveys important data, describe the key points.
• Ensure the text can be understood without additional context.
  • Example: “Volunteers pick up litter from a grassy area.”

Alternative text is especially important on information-heavy graphics. 

• Example: “CEC Monthly Exchange 2025. A monthly webinar featuring successful stories of collaboration in our rural Missouri communities. Answering the question… So how did you do that?”
• Another Example: “People on a phone, tablet and laptop with reaction emojis and the words: crack the social media code.”

See these frequently asked questions on using alt text.  

Add Captions to Videos

All videos should have closed captions, except for videos set exclusively to music with no spoken word. While not required, it is helpful to have an SubRip Subtitle (.srt) file that notes the video is set to music. 

• Captions can either be closed captions (uploaded on the backend via an .srt file) or directly burned onto the video.  
  • If you upload a video to YouTube, it will automatically populate an .srt file for you. You can then upload this through the publishing platform on each social media app. The exception is X/Twitter – It’s recommended to use burned-on captions for X/Twitter as recent app updates have stripped away some of the former accessibility options.
  • You may need to edit some of the words, so always check for accuracy, especially on names.  
• This also applied to Instagram Stories, Reels and TikToks.
  • You can add closed captions in both apps.
  • Again, double-check these captions for accuracy before publishing.   

Emojis – Use Them Sparingly

Emojis are great to supplement a message. They should never stand alone as the message or lead your messaging. Try to keep them toward the end of your messaging. Use them sparingly and never without contextualization.

• This helpful article shows how an over-reliance on emojis can distort a message on a screen reader. 
• See these examples of good usage of emojis on social media:
  • Example 1
  • Example 2

Never Use Special Fonts 

Several accounts use special fonts, but we should not use them. This is how special fonts sound on a screen reader. 

Use CamelCase for Hashtags 

Screen readers can identify words in hashtags if the first letter of each word is capitalized, i.e. #CamelCase.

Use Appropriate Color Contrast

Avoid hard-to-read color combinations, like gold text on a white background or white text on a gold background. Refer to the Mizzou Brand Color Guidelines to ensure your color choices meet university standards and support accessibility. The Brand Guidelines page shows examples of accessible and non-accessible color combinations.

Learn more about how to use appropriate color combinations and how to check your color contrast ratio.