Social Media

Anyone who creates content for, or publishes content to, U-M-affiliated social media accounts. This includes professionals and suppliers paid by a U-M unit to create and/or publish content on that unit’s behalf.

Start with Basics: Complete the Social Media Accessibility Training (U-M Canvas Course | Estimated time to complete: 30–45 minutes).

This course includes information on overall best practices for social media content, in addition to how to apply accessibility features within commonly used social media platforms.

Social media content created before the compliance date is not required to be fully accessible according to the Title II regulations update. However, content creators may be required to provide accessible versions of their posts upon request and are expected to make past content that is reposted after the compliance date accessible. Therefore, proactive review of past social media content is not necessary and energy should be focused on improving workflows to account for digital accessibility in your posts going forward.

Learn more about the social media content exception in the Disability Equity Office’s Social Media Accessibility Guidance.

Please note: U-M units that are currently producing accessible social media content should continue to do so. All units should aim to integrate accessible social media practices into their content creation workflows as soon as possible in order to be sufficiently prepared for the compliance date.

Please refer to the guidance in the Review section, which explains an exception that applies to the remediation of social media content posted prior to the compliance date.

Individuals who create content for and/or publish content to U-M-affiliated social media accounts are responsible for the accessibility of that content. This includes professionals and suppliers paid by a U-M unit to publish content on that unit’s behalf.

This does not include individuals who engage with U-M social media content (such as by commenting or reposting and modifying content) and are members of the public or are affiliated with U-M but not acting in an official capacity for the university or a university unit.

Managers of employees or suppliers responsible for social media content should assist with factoring additional time required to make and maintain accessible content into work plans and production timelines.

The workflow adjustments described in this section will add time to social media content production and publishing workflows. As you implement changes, keep track of how long it is taking and factor that time into your content development and review timelines. This will get easier and faster as you become more familiar with best practices and how to implement them.

If you are a social media content creator, make the following adjustments to account for digital accessibility in your workflow:

• Ensure you are applying social media accessibility best practices to post content, including post text, images, and video content. Review the following resources for comprehensive guidance on how to make these content types accessible:
  • Writing in Plain Language
  • Images & Complex Visuals Roadmap Pathway (Learn and Remediate areas)
  • Video & Audio Roadmap Pathway (Learn and Remediate areas)
• When linking to documents, ensure they have been checked and remediated for accessibility. If you are the document author, refer to the Documents & Emails Roadmap Pathway (Learn and Remediate areas) for guidance on creating accessible documents. If you are not the author, either check the accessibility status of the document with the author/owner or do your own check using one of the accessibility checker tools listed in the Documents & Emails Roadmap Pathway (Remediate area). If a document you didn’t author is inaccessible, request an accessible version or consider seeking an alternative reference.
• When linking to external, non-university websites, use a tool like WAVE by WebAIM to check for accessibility issues. If the scan reports a lot of errors and alerts, consider seeking an alternative reference or preparing a version of the relevant content in an accessible, alternative format (e.g., a linked digital document).
• If you are not directly responsible for posting the content you create, be sure to provide alt text descriptions, caption or transcript files, and a note about the accessibility of any linked content to the person who will be posting the content. This will streamline the posting process.
• Refresh your knowledge on social media accessibility periodically by reviewing linked resources and attending training sessions. This is especially important as social media platforms evolve and offer additional features to support accessibility.

If you are a social media account manager that publishes content from creators other than yourself, add accessibility as a quality control step to your posting/post scheduling workflow. This is not intended to be a detailed review of all post components, as content creators should be responsible for factors such as accuracy of text, alt text, and captions, and the monitoring plan (below) will assist with refined spot checks of content. Instead, be familiar with the guidance described for social media content creators above and check for these key accessibility features on an ongoing basis:

• Post text is easy to understand, with CamelCase hashtags included at the end
• Links are either attached to descriptive text or provided as short URLs
• Links successfully redirect to intended content
• Images have alt text
• Videos and audio clips have captions

Social media account managers should schedule periodic, detailed spot checks of posts for accessibility.

Frequency: In the early stages of implementing accessibility features, plan to perform spot checks more frequently (once per month). As content creators demonstrate the ability to consistently implement best practices, adjust to a lower frequency (once per academic term). If accessibility standards ever start to slip in the future, you can add checks until things improve again.

How to select posts:

• Choose posts that contain different types of content (e.g., some with images, some with videos, some with linked documents, and some with linked websites).
• Select a couple posts from each content creator that contributes to your account.
• If you have accounts on more than one platform, plan to compare the accessibility for the same post across each platform to ensure nuances in available features or functionality is not being overlooked (for example, differences in how links are added or how alt text is added and displayed).

What to look for: Do a detailed check of each selected post and document any issues.

• Ensure social media accessibility best practices are followed.
• Review linked content (documents and websites) with accessibility checkers.
• Examine whether accessibility features are applied correctly and consistently across the different platforms where the content was published.

Report back and troubleshoot: If you are working with a team of contributors and/or account managers, report on your findings in one-on-one meetings (if issues are consistently occurring in an individual’s posts) or in a team meeting (if issues are occurring across many contributors’ posts). Determine what is causing the issues, such as lack of understanding of accessibility best practices or lack of time to implement them. Then make a plan to better support accessibility moving forward, which should include a period where posts are monitored more closely to ensure the plan is effective.