In today’s day and age, nearly everyone has an account on some social media platform. As of July, Instagram itself is the sixth most popular social network in the world, with over 1 billion users globally. In 2011, the platform began using hashtags to categorize photos, allowing users to find them in a timely manner, and the rest is history…except not really, because the internet is always advancing with the latest innovations.
In a previous blog, I talked about how utilizing hashtags is essential for the success of your business’s digital marketing efforts. But now, I’m here to share just how to use the good old hashtag in an accessible way.
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are a set of rules, regulations, and recommendations aimed at making web content accessible for everyone, including those with disabilities such as blindness, deafness, learning disabilities, speech disabilities, and more. There are plenty of ways to ensure that your content is accessible, such as adding alt text to images to describe what is being shown and adding open captions to your videos that are always shown. Captions not only help those with disabilities but also allow the content to still be understood when there is no audio. Captions can also help with SEO, but that’s a whole other story.
Add Some Accessibility – Hashtags
Hashtags may seem pretty straight forward. To create one, you just need a “#”, followed by the word or phrase that describes your content, and you’re done. But what many people don’t realize is that when you add a hashtag in all lowercase letters, such as #socialmediamarketing, there are some groups of people who can’t easily comprehend the hashtag, such as those with learning disabilities including dyslexia, or hearing/vision loss.
When adding hashtags to your social posts, you should try to practice writing them in “camel case.” Similar to title case, which capitalizes all words but leaves the proper spacing between the words, camel case is when words are capitalized but with no spaces between them — ex. JavaScript. There are two variations of this practice: Pascal case, which capitalizes the initial word, and Dromedary case, which keeps the initial word lowercase.
Say you’re adding hashtags to your post about Yellowstone National Park. Instead of using the hashtag #yellowstonenationalpark, you should use #YellowstoneNationalPark. This helps screen readers read each word instead of just one large, nonexistent word. It also helps those with learning disabilities distinguish between each word. The capital letters indicate when a new word begins and allows them to read the entire phrase.
Let ENX2 Help You
Complying with the WCAG may seem lengthy and complex, but it’s necessary. Let the #ENX2Crew help you today. Contact us at 1-844-ENX2-WEB or by filling out our contact form here.