Following a presentation on the Broward MPO's social media pivot during the COVID-19 pandemic and tips and tricks to incorporate accessibility into social media posts, PR Daily highlighted the agency's best practices on a national scale.
On Thursday, May 20, 2021, the Broward MPO Public Outreach team presented at a Ragan Communications workshop on the social media pivot the team needed to take during the COVID-19 pandemic and the focus they put on making their posts accessible to all users. A key function of the MPO Public Outreach team is to reach out to underrepresented communities in Broward, as highlighted in the Public Participation Plan, which include those who are hard of hearing, deaf, limited sight, blind, and those who live with cognitive disabilities including dyslexia and epilepsy. The best practices the Broward MPO team highlighted reflect ways that these users can still interact with social media and have the same access to information as others in the community have.
For instance, limiting hashtags improve accessibility because when screen readers scan over hashtags, they can't decipher where one word ends and the next word starts because of the lack of spacing. By limiting hashtags and keeping them at the tail end of a social media post when used, it improves readability of the post and allows for the most important information to be covered first.
But it doesn't stop there! Videos, images and graphics are often used in social media to include a visual element to engage the target audience. By adding captions, limiting strobe lights, including alternative text and incorporating color contrast, the accessibility of those videos, images and graphics improves drastically.
Remember that more accessible posts and visual elements improve the experience for everyone, not just those who have a disability. Accessibility is created for ALL users in mind.
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Interested in learning more about how you can improve accessibility in your social media campaigns? Reach out to Hannah Bourgeois at bourgeoish@browardmpo.org to schedule a conversation on how to create more accessible (and engaging!) social media campaigns.