Newscaster Charity Digital explore how charities can make the most out of their social media accounts, helping them to reach more people and make them a successful extension of their online presence.
Social media is starting to be an effective way for charities to connect with their supporters. With the popularity of the internet constantly rising, organisations are strengthening their support on key digital media platforms.
But for many charities, the great expanse of the social media landscape can still be a bit off-putting.
When sending out social media posts, charities will strive to reach as many people as possible. But some organisations sometimes make the mishap of not making their messages as easily available to everyone, and that can limit their reach.
When it comes to accessibility, charities need to consider the different ways that people approach their content.
Forming good habits doesn’t really require drastic changes, but a few tweaks here and there to a charities’ posts can make that important difference.
Image Descriptions
There may often be those who are blind or partially sighted visiting a charity’s posts, so describing photos or putting alt-text makes a difference. Just keep it simple - describe what you see.
The description should make sense regarding the image being shown, but that shouldn’t mean the author of the post has to describe every-single-aspect, because listening to a voiceover describing a 1000-word description with unrelated details can be distracting.
Instead, it pays to just select a few key details to paint a picture: Without including ‘this is an image of’ or ‘this is a picture of…’
CamelCasing #Hashtags
Hashtags should be kept short and sweet.
But even when a charity uses the snappiest of tags, they will be likely to include a few words, and because of this a screen reader (technology to help people who have difficulties seeing access and interact with digital content) could find it hard to understand.
By using CamelCase next time a hashtag is added (capitalising the first letter of each new word) everyone can easily read it:
Try
#HashtagsLikeThis instead of
#hashtagslikethis.
This will also benefit visitors who are visually impaired since a voiceover normally reads over the text and might not understand the hashtag if it was written in lower case.
Emoji use in Moderation
Emojis are a great thing to spice up social media posts. Even so, Text-to-Speech software will read out a description for every single emoji, so it pays not to use too many.
If necessary, charities should insert them at the end of a sentence, making sure they make sense when read through a screen reader where possible.
Colour, Contrast
Charities need to consider how they use colours in their posts.
As an example, charts shouldn’t use colour as the only way to communicate a key message or information. Instead, they should ideally make sure their written message is clear and backed up by published data.
Also, using block (or primary) colours is better than pale colours or shades, as this can affect how a message is seen against white or dark backgrounds.
Written work should be created with colour contrast in mind, as this would make sure a person’s access isn’t dependent on them.
Readability
Readability goes hand-in-hand with accessibility, and as social media posts have a limited space, it’s important to get straight to the point and be clear.
A charity should use short sentences and avoid large chunks of text, as this will make the message more readable: Effective accessible copy should be simple.
Fonts
In the UK today, it is reported that more than 2 Million people are
living with vision loss, so accessible fonts are important.
Unusual fonts, such as italics, should be avoided. Also, unusual symbols can confuse screen reading software.
Captioning and Subtitles
Written word isn’t the only thing that’s delivered on the web. Videos and podcasts are also good ways to share content and increase social media engagement.
If delivering a video, it also benefits a visitor if subtitles or captions are enabled and available. If not, a transcript should also be available too. Together with…
Descriptive Links
No doubt, a charities’ social media author has typed ‘Click here’ in literally every post. But suppose the visitor doesn’t know where ‘here’ is?
Using descriptive links to tell the user where ‘here’ is, can be more effective when asking visitors to visit a charity’s donation page (as screen readers normally follow links closely) rather than directing them to “donate here”. This small change can make the difference!
Structure, Language, Style
In fundraising communications, the flow of information and language a charity uses will always be an important part.
Whether it’s a passing visitor or charity supporter, it shouldn’t matter who is reading the message. A well-written document should guide them to the information they need, and it should use language that makes the point clear and follow a logical order.
National newscaster
Charity Digital explore this and more in their feature that looks at how charities can make the most out of their social media accounts.
With help from various contributors including the
Global Cyber Alliance, they explore some of the key considerations to factor into a social media audit, from content to branding.
To
read the feature, visit the Charity Digital
website.