Design engaging content for social media

Here are my ten tips on designing content for social media:

  1. Use simple graphics. Graphics that have too many details aren’t fully understood or appreciated in a few seconds. Keeping graphics simple and elegant helps your message remain clear.
  2. Use colors that drive more engagement. Even if your organization or agency has a recommended color palette, you can sometimes include a contrasting color or tint to grab people’s attention. However, make sure you get approval when you veer away from a brand’s approved colors. For help choosing colors that look good together, consult a resource that provides recommendations on color combinations. For example, try the color wheel offered by Canva.
  3. Use contrast to help put the focus on key elements. It doesn’t always have to be acolorcontrast. You can also use variations in size, texture, shape, layout, and font.
  4. Use text that is easy to read. Text should be easy to read so it doesn’t distract users from the full impact of visuals..
  5. Use a variety of styles. Although certain styles clearly make a company or brand recognizable, using the same style for all social media content gets boring. Shake it up and surprise users with a variety of styles. Be playful and adjust text sizes, colors, and weights for full effect.
  6. Use smart branding. Users should know what brand you’re highlighting without your brand being mentioned repeatedly, or your logo visible at all times. Place branding in or near key images for users to find when they want it.
  7. Use principles of visual hierarchy. Visual hierarchy enables users to observe overall meaning before they gather details from individual elements. A structured hierarchy of visual components can group elements together, place elements in a natural or predictable pattern (such as reading from left to right), or lead to the most important elements to click on.
  8. Use a call to action. A call to action is an instruction that tells the customer what to do next. Whether it’s liking, sharing, or commenting, include a call to action in your social media content to reach more users.
  9. Use visuals across multiple platforms. Design, optimize, and re-use graphics, photos, and videos across multiple social media platforms. For example, a photo on Instagram can be reused on Facebook.
  10. Use and create templates. Use and create templates for social media content that is successful. Doing so enables you to create similar content with a high likelihood of success.

When creating social media content, it’s important to remember that your audience includes people with hearing loss who rely on captions, and people with visual disabilities who rely on special text that describes images. This reading describes how you can make your social media posts more accessible to these audiences.

What is accessibility?

According to one definition, accessibility is considering the needs of people with disabilities when products, services, and facilities are built or modified, making them usable by people of all abilities.

Make social media posts accessible

Use the following guidelines to help make your social media posts more accessible to all.

Alternative text

Alternative text, or alt text for short, is a brief, written description of an image with the primary purpose of assisting individuals who are visually impaired. Many platforms allow you to submit alt text for social media posts. Some platforms automatically generate alt text for images using artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities. While this technology is still emerging, it might save some time if you edit the auto-generated text instead of creating the text yourself.

Here are two tips for writing alt text descriptions:

Cup of coffee with foam in the shape of a heart on top.

Because screen readers announce the presence of images with the word “image,” there is no need to include “image” in your description. For example, instead of “image of a cup of coffee” you can use “cup of coffee” and even add more descriptive details like “cup of coffee with foam in the shape of a heart on top.”

    Color contrast

    Color contrast ratios (L1/L2) measure the luminescence (or brightness) of the lighter color (L1) against the luminescence of the darker color (L2). Contrast ratios range from 1/1 or 1:1 to 21/1 or 21:1. White on white has a contrast ratio of 1:1 and black on white has a contrast ratio of 21:1. For comparison purposes, red on white has a contrast ratio of 4:1, green on white has a contrast ratio of 1.4:1, and blue on white has a contrast ratio of 8.6:1 .

    For graphics in social media, use a color contrast of at least 4.5:1 for text and background color to make the text more readable. Using this guidance, you would choose to use blue on white with a contrast ratio of 8.6:1 instead of red or green on white with contrast ratios of 4:1 and 1.4:1, respectively.

    Pro tip: WebAIM is a useful website where you can access resources for making content more accessible. Check out their interactive contrast checker page where you can input foreground and background hex color codes to determine the contrast ratio.

    Fonts

    Custom fonts may appear striking and innovative, but screen readers could have a problem identifying the text. Be on alert because this includes italic text and other standard styles.

    Hashtags

    Hashtags should use what’s known as CamelCase, where initial letters of words are capitalized. For example, use #VirtualClassroom instead of #virtualclassroom. Screen readers recognize  CamelCase text as two words and will use the correct pronunciation.

    Emojis

    Emojis are fun, but use them sparingly in social media posts because screen readers use multiple words to describe them. Imagine five smiling face emojis translated by a screen reader as “Grinning Face with Big Eyes, Grinning Face with Big Eyes, Smiling Face with Sunglasses, Grinning Face with Big Eyes, Grinning Face with Big Eyes.” Emojis take too long to describe with screen readers and people can lose their patience.

    Language

    When you create social media content, avoid terms that undervalue or dehumanize people because of their disability. For example, instead of using the term “the blind,” you could use “blind people” or “partially-sighted people.” Additionally, just because you have heard certain phrases used frequently doesn’t mean that they are inclusive. It is often necessary to rephrase commonly used statements with accessibility in mind. For example, you could replace “take a walk” with “enjoy the outdoors” because people using the aid of wheelchairs can’t walk, but certainly do enjoy the outdoors. Use inclusive language in your social media posts.

    Key takeaways

    Social media content casts a wide net to increase user interest in a company, brand, product, or individual. The more accessible and inclusive posts are, the wider the audience and the greater the interest. Aim for the largest audience possible by making your social media content accessible.