How do I add alt text to my images?
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For Facebook, X, Threads, Instagram, Pinterest, and LinkedIn messages you can add descriptive (alt) text when publishing images so audiences with vision disabilities can access your content.
What are some alt text best practices?
Alt text is critical for folks accessing your content on social. It's helpful to think about what you're trying to achieve with your content. You want to make sure that your alt text is descriptive enough to make an image accessible in a way that helps you meet your objectives and informs your followers.
Some best practices to keep in mind are:
- Keep it succinct, but informative. 125 characters or so is a common guideline, but you can include more to help convey the image and its context.
- Drop “image of” or “picture of.” Get to the heart of the description.
- Include keywords. Alt text can even help with SEO as long as the keywords are relevant.
- Include context. Explain why an image is specifically paired with text.
Alt text is not for hiding easter eggs, giving image credit or a call to action. Instead, alt text is all about accessibility: describing images for real people who use assistive screen readers or have turned images off in their browser.
How do I add alt text?
To add alt text to an image:
- Navigate to Compose.
- Select the X, Facebook, Threads, Instagram, Pinterest and/or LinkedIn profile you want to publish a message to.
- Add the image you want to include along with your message.
- Click the pencil icon for the image you attached.
- Click Add Alt Text. The Edit Alt Text popup opens.
- Enter a description of the image, up to 1000 characters for Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn and 500 characters for Pinterest.
- Click Save. An alt text indicator appears on the draft image within Compose as well as on the post on your Publishing Calendar.
You can also use Generate by AI Assist to use the OpenAI Integration to create alt text.
Learn more about the importance of digital inclusivity with this Arb webinar recording: Elevate Your Impact: Fostering Inclusion Through Content. Scroll down in the post to find the recording.
