Some key communication design considerations on how to enhance customer service with members of the public on social media are provided below. Ensure that your organisational activity on social media is in keeping with the organisation’s Social Media Guidelines or Policy.
Create a tone that is appropriate for your organisation
Make sure your content and tone are appropriate for your organisation and the audience.
Keep information concise
Provide all of the information you want included in your post in a clear and concise manner. Avoid using unnecessary content. Separate out vital details, for example location or time of an event, so they are easier to see.
Provide contact information
Provide the organisation’s contact information on its account page/‘profile’. Provide more than one method of contact, for example, a phone number and an email address or a ‘contact us’ form.
Hashtags (#)
A hashtag — written with a # symbol — is used to index keywords or topics on social media. This function was created on Twitter, and allows people to easily follow topics they are interested in.
Using hashtags to categorise posts by keyword:
- The hashtag symbol (#) is used before a relevant keyword or phrase in a post to categorise those posts, and ensures that the posts will show up in a keyword search.
- Clicking or tapping on a hashtagged word in any message shows other posts that include that hashtag.
Use “CamelCase” for multiple words for hashtags. That is, use capital letters for the first letters of compound words (two or more words joined). For example, use #LeadersQuestions, not #Leadersquestions.
The ‘at’ symbol @
A username identifies a user on social media and is always preceded immediately by the @ symbol. For example, the Department of Justice and Equality username is @DeptJusticeIRL.
The @ sign is used to connect usernames in social media posts. Users of social media can use the @username to connect in posts, send a message or link to a profile.
Composing Posts
Place #hashtags or @mentions at the beginning of the post.
If space allows, spell out any acronyms or use a different way to convey the information.
Do not include abbreviations or ‘text speak’ in status updates. There is plenty of space for status updates, so spell out acronyms. It is recommended that the full name is written, followed by the acronym in brackets, the first time the acronym is used. For example, the Citizens Information Board (CIB).
Emojis
Emojis can help to convey the tone of a message. However, Emojis can also cause meaning to be lost and can make text difficult to understand. Position Emojis at the end of a sentence and do not use the same Emoji repeatedly as text to speech software will read this Emoji repeatedly.
Learn more
To learn more about links in Social Media posts go to Links and Microcontent.
Insert prefixes before images, video and audio
Put prefixes before images, video and audio in posts.
This informs members of the public using screen readers what to expect before it is read aloud. For example,
- Images: [IMG]
- Videos: [VIDEO]
- Audio: [AUDIO]
Provide Alternative (Alt) Text
Provide Alternative (Alt) Text for an image if needed. Otherwise mark it as decorative. Provide a link back to the organisation’s webpage that hosts a copy of the image, video or audio where it provides a full caption or transcript.
Provide closed captioning (subtitles) for videos
All videos should have closed captioning. Closed captioning means that the captions are not visible until activated by the viewer.
YouTube has a feature that automatically captions videos in less than 10 minutes. Though YouTube has the ability to create captions based on an audio file, a written transcript should be used for better accuracy. After uploading a text transcript, set YouTube to sync it up. The transcript should then be reviewed and edited to ensure the caption timing matches the video. Once the YouTube video has captions, it is advisable to download the captions and use an editor to tidy them up.
Tools for creating or editing captions
If creating captions for a video, or editing existing YouTube captions, there are a number of free tools that can help:
- YouTube help: has online tutorials about captioning.
- MAGpie: a free Windows application from the National Centre for Accessible Media.
Provide the option of viewing videos with captions in social media posts
If your organisation has a YouTube channel, upload videos to the channel and make sure to enable closed-captions. Then post a link to the YouTube video as a status update, rather than uploading the video into social media. This ensures that people will be directed to the accessible version on YouTube.
Learn more
YouTube provides a tutorial for creating subtitles and captions in YouTube.
Twitter provides information on adding captions to images on Twitter.
Instagram provides information on how to edit alternative (Alt) text for a photo on Instagram.
LinkedIn provides information on adding closed captioning to videos on LinkedIn.
Facebook provides information on its accessibility features.
Social Media Checklist
- Create a tone that is appropriate for your organisation.
- Provide contact information on the organisation’s account page/‘profile’.
- Capitalise the first letters of compound words for hashtags.
- Place any hashtags or @mentions at the beginning of posts.
- Spell out any acronyms.
- Put prefixes before images, video and audio.
- Provide Alternative (Alt) Text for images, video and audio.
- Provide access to the full caption or transcript for an image, video or audio.
- Provide closed captioning for videos.
Social Media Checklist
- Create a tone that is appropriate for your organisation.
- Provide contact information on the organisation’s account page/‘profile’.
- Capitalise the first letters of compound words for hashtags.
- Place any hashtags or @mentions at the beginning of posts.
- Spell out any acronyms.
- Put prefixes before images, video and audio.
- Provide Alternative (Alt) Text for images, video and audio.
- Provide access to the full caption or transcript for an image, video or audio.
- Provide closed captioning for videos.