In this webinar, Laurie and Lauren will teach us how to prioritize accessibility in our social media strategies. They will share best practices and examples to help us ensure we are creating an inclusive digital space.

1. Social Media Accessibility
#SharingForEveryone
Laurie Merryman – AVP Marketing Digital Accessibility - Wells Fargo
Lauren Harbury – Senior Manager, Social Media Content - Nielsen
© 2019 Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. All rights reserved. Internal use.

2. Your Presenters
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• Laurie Merryman – AVP Marketing
Digital Accessibility - Wells Fargo
• Lauren Harbury – Senior Manager,
Social Media Content - Nielsen

3. It’s 2021. Your website is upside-down
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4. In the past . . .
Start on homepage
Select a category
Select an item
Take action
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5. Go to website
Customers are reaching you from a wide range of platforms
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Start on the web via search/social apps
View a post/article/banner ad
Select link for a product/service

6. The “new” front door
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7. Wells Fargo’s Social Media Accessibility Taskforce - Overview
• Initial work began in Q4 2018. Taskforce formed in Q1 2019
• Provides guidance and guidelines for developing accessible social media content
• A commitment to creating accessible content in the financial space
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8. The Goal.
Is to enable all customers and potential
customers equal access to
Wells Fargo’s Products & Services.

9. The Power Of Social Media In Marketing
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10. Our Social Media Team Vision
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.

11. Social Media Team Overview
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39 Social Media
team members
managing 17 social
media channels
5 Social Media groups
• Strategy
• Publishing
• Response Marketing
• Social Listening
• Distributed
Line of business and
marketing partners:
• IHA
• Brand
• WIM
• Home Lending
• Student
• Corp. Com
• And more
*All of the business
lines using social to
drive business
goals will have to
align to our new
accessibility
guidelines.
External
Marketing and
Social Media
agency
partners

12. Where social media marketing and digital accessibility connect
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• Marketing Digital Accessibility & Governance Team
• Engage with Marketing partners and teams
• Consult on WCAG success criterion & internal enterprise digital
accessibility policy
• Review all marketing digital content
• Perform hands-on testing for accessibility
• Defect logging & remediation
• Audit documentation
• Education & awareness

13. What To Keep In Mind When Creating Social Posts
• Color Contrast - Text overlays on images with minimum contrast ratio of 4.5:1.
• Capitalize the first letter of each word in multi-word hashtags - #FinancialHealth
• Put hashtags and mentions at the end whenever possible.
• Avoid saying “click here.” Use descriptive calls-to-action
• Leverage alt. text capabilities
• Fully caption all videos
• General trends of charts and graphs should be described in the post content, link
title, or alt text.
– If it’s too complicated to explain, a simpler chart should be used.
• For posts that link to a video or a PDF, indicate this at the end of the content using
the prefix [VIDEO] or [PDF].
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14. The Challenge:
Lack of accessibility support in
social platforms & publishing
tools
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15. Accessibility Capabilities by Social Media Platform
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Accessibility Strategy Facebook Instagram Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest YouTube
Does the platform automatically add
alt-text to images?
Yes Yes No No No Not Applicable
Does the platform support adding/editing
alt-test to images?
Yes Yes Yes Yes No Not Applicable
Sprinklr - Can you add alt text in Sprinklr? No No Yes No No Not Applicable
Can you add closed captions with a SRT
file on the platform?
Yes
SRT files can be used to add
closed captions to dark post
video only.
Organic video needs closed
captions embedded in video
file.
SRT files can be used to add
closed captions to dark post
video tweets only.
Organic video needs closed
captions embedded in video
file.
Yes No Yes

16. Content Examples
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17. Image & Stats Content
• Social Media Wins:
– Highlights an important issues that Asset
Managers discuss with their clients, providing
education
– Direct call to action
– Color contrast on image
– Link and hashtag are correctly located at the end
of the copy
• Accessibility Opportunities:
– Include the stats from the image in the copy
– Capitalize the hashtag
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18. Video content
• Social Media Wins:
– Provides useful information on financial health,
as well as driving to a resource for education
– Direct call to action
• Accessibility Opportunities:
– Include critical information from the video on the
copy of the post
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19. Requirements & Best Practices
for Wells Fargo
Social Media Teams
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20. Text requirements across all platforms
• Use camel case for multi-word hashtags. This makes hashtags more legible and
more compatible with screen readers. Ex. #FinancialHealth
• Avoid saying “click here.” Use descriptive calls-to-action like “click here to learn
more about our..” or “learn more about our new…”
• Put hashtags and mentions at the end whenever possible. Punctuation marks are
read aloud by screen readers, so hashtags or @ mentions can disrupt copy.
• For posts that link to a video or a PDF, indicate this at the end of the content using
the prefix [VIDEO] or [PDF].
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21. Image requirements across all platforms
• General trends of charts and graphs should be described in the post content, link title, or alt text. If it’s too complicated to
explain, a simpler chart should be used.
• If there is text on your image, it should be included in the post description, alt-text, or link title.
Additional Twitter requirements:
• Provide alt-text description for image tweets that include an image or graphics that provide critical information. For
example, if the image includes data or additional info that is not included in the tweet copy (ex: a phone number). Best
practices include:
• Make sure to convey the content and functionality of the image. For example, instead of “image of a chart” use something
like “A bar chart illustrates that there has been a year-over-year increase in forest fires, peaking at 100 this year.”
• Skip saying “image of” or “photograph of”
• If the image includes any copy, make sure to include it in the alt-text description.
Additional Facebook and LinkedIn best practices:
• Consider providing a brief high level description in the post copy if the image is of a chart or graphic that includes any
critical information. For example: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6556925121154609152
• Facebook recommends using no to little amount of text to overlay on images for better performance.
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22. Capture key critical info in post copy & a ‘Learn more’ CTA
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23. Video requirements across all platforms
• Add captioning to ALL videos that include sound. Best practices include:
– Include all spoken words in the captioning
– Include any significant background sounds in the video (ex. [car horn honking])
– For videos with music only, include the word “music”
– Add descriptive text to any information that is in the video and not included
anywhere else in the post or spoken in the video (ex. phone number, website)
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24. What’s next for the Taskforce?
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• Continued engagement with social teams & partners
• Encourage publishing tools to add support for accessibility
• Strategies for Facebook & Instagram stories

25. Thank You
Laurie Merryman
Laurie.Merryman@wellsfargo.com
Lauren Harbury
Lauren.Harbury@nielsen.com
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