Alternative text on social media
Most social media posts have images. Even LinkedIn has more image posts than link posts. However, most of these images don’t have alternative (alt) text. Alternative text provides a text description of the image for people who can not see it. People who are blind or low-vision use screen readers, which reads out the alternative text for them. Without alternative text, people with vision impairments may not be able to understand your post. Over 2 billion people in the world have vision impairments.
This guide tells you how to add alternative text in different social media platforms. It is very quick and free to do so should become an ingrained part of your social media process.
How to write alternative text
Alternative text should be short and simple. Imagine you’re describing the image over the phone but don’t go into too much detail. If the image contains text, you need to write out the text in full in the alternative text. In this image for example, you could write:
"An older person being fitted with a hearing aid”.
More tips on writing alternative text.
X (Twitter) alternative text
Add an image to your tweet as normal
Click on the link that says ‘Add description’
Type in your alternative text
Click save and continue with your tweet
When you post your tweet you will see the word ‘alt’ in the corner of your image. This means you’ve added alternative text. You can click on the ‘alt’ link to read alternative text on other tweets too.
LinkedIn alternative text
Add an image to your post as normal
Click on the link that says ‘Alt text’
Type in your alternative text
Click done and continue with your post
When you post you won’t be able to see the alternative text, but screen readers will be able to read it out loud.
Facebook alternative text
Add an image to your post as normal
Click on the button that says ‘Edit’
Click the link that says ‘Alternative 'text’
Choose ‘Custom alt text’
Type in your alternative text
Click save and continue with your post
When you post you won’t be able to see the alternative text, but screen readers will be able to read it out loud. Facebook may suggest alternative text for you but this is rarely useful, you should always enter your own.
Instagram alternative text
Add an image to your post as normal
Click on the button that says ‘Advanced settings’
Click the text that says ‘Write alt text’
Type in your alternative text
Click the tick icon to save and continue with your post
When you post you won’t be able to see the alternative text, but screen readers will be able to read it out loud.
Image descriptions
Image descriptions are used to describe an image in more detail and are usually written at the end of the post. Alternative text is often hidden from view for screen readers, while image descriptions can be read by everyone. It’s especially important to use an image description when there is text in an image, as people may struggle to read the text if the display is very small.
