How to Add Alt Text to Social Media Posts

Alternative text, also known as alt text, is a short description of an image that is read by screen readers. With social media becoming an increasingly integral part of our daily lives, it’s important to consider the accessibility of our content.

There are three key reasons why you should start adding alt text to your social media posts:

• Accessibility: Adding alt text to social media posts makes them more accessible to individuals who are blind or visually impaired. Furthermore, providing context of the image ensures that everyone can understand the content you are sharing, regardless of their abilities.
• Discoverability: Alt text can help social media algorithms better understand and categorize your content. This can improve the visibility of your post in search results, which can ultimately increase its reach and drive more traffic to your account.
• Engagement: Improved accessibility means more people can enjoy your content. This will directly improve your engagement rate — that is, it may lead to an increase of comments, shares, or likes.

Now that you’re convinced of the importance of adding alt text, read on to learn how to do so on the four most popular social media platforms: Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn!

Instagram

1. Tap the “+” icon to create a new post. Select the image you to post and edit it as you normally would.
2. After you’ve finished editing your image, tap on Advanced Settings at the bottom of the screen.
3. Scroll until you see the Write Alt Text option and tap on it — a text box will appear where you can write a description of your post (you can add a description to each image in a carousel post)
4. After you’ve finished writing your alt text, tap on Done to save it

Facebook

1. Click Photo/Video at the top of your Feed.
2. Select the photo you want to add.
3. Hover over the photo and click Edit.
4. The automatically generated text will be shown on the left side of your photo. Click Override generated alt text to edit it.
5. Write your alt text in the box. 
6. To save your alt text, click Save in the bottom left.

Twitter

1. Click on the Tweet compose button and attach your photo(s).
2. To insert descriptive text, click Add description (you can add a description to each image in a tweet).
3. After you’ve finished writing your alt text, click the Done button.

Linkedin

1. Click Start a post at the top of your LinkedIn timeline and select the image you would like to upload.
2. Click Alt.Text and write your descriptive text
3. After you’ve finished writing your alt text, click the Save button.

Congratulations — You just made the digital world a little bit more accessible for everyone! If you’re interested in learning more about web accessibility, check out our short self-guided workshop: