Accessible Social is a free resource and education hub that shares best practices for creating accessible and inclusive social media content.
The site was created by social media strategist Alexa Heinrich to fill a noticeable gap in the marketing and advertising industry. The goal of Accessible Social is to centralize information, resources, and best practices for creating social media content that is accessible to people living with disabilities. It is a living website that will keep growing and evolving as technology and social media continue to do the same. Hopefully, anyone who visits the site will feel empowered and prepared to create inclusive digital content that everyone can access and enjoy.
And yes, Accessible Social's mascot is a camel in honor of #camelCase. Their name is Carl after Carl Linnaeus, the zoologist who gave dromedary camels their binomial name. They also answer to Carla.
If you have any questions, concerns, or feedback about the site, please do not hesitate to contact Accessible Social directly.
Any information found on Accessible Social may be freely shared or referenced on other websites, publications, or applications. Citation is not required. However, you should reach out to the creators of any external resources shared on the site for their preference of credit if you choose to share or reference their work.
While Accessible Social mostly focuses on social media, many of the practices outlined on the site are also applicable to other areas of marketing such as website management, email marketing, graphic design, and PDF creation.
There are dozens of social media platforms in existence, and not all of them will be covered by Accessible Social, unfortunately. The platforms discussed on this site are limited to the ones that Alexa, the Director of Accessible Social, has personal experience using.
Alexa Heinrich is a social media strategist and the Director of Accessible Social. Her introduction to accessibility for social media happened entirely by accident.
One of her numerous responsibilities at a previous job in Chicago was managing the web sliders for her organization’s homepage. One day, the digital strategist on Alexa's team asked her if she was adding alt text to the sliders—she had no idea what her colleague was talking about. After that, Alexa started doing more research into what accessibility meant for digital platforms, specifically social media.
It was admittedly a struggle for her. Most of the accessibility information online focuses on websites and digital communications that have been around much longer than social media. Alexa hopped all over the internet, trying to piece together information from individual resources and articles that would help her as a social media strategist. It was a gap that needed to be filled as much as possible.
Alexa did her best to add as much information as possible about accessible social media practices to her personal website and developed numerous resources for her marketing peers like a best practices checklist, a Facebook group, and a newsletter.
Eventually, Alexa decided that all these things needed one place to live that was more separated from her personal online presence. And so, she designed and built the Accessible Social website.
To contact Alexa, please reach out to her via her personal website at www.TheRealAlexa.com.
