How to Create Accessible Hashtags
Do you use hashtags in your blog, social media posts, YouTube descriptions, and email campaigns? Did you know they need to be written in an accessible format?
Unless you have a family member or friend with a disability who has a difficult time navigating the web, or God forbid your business has been hit with an accessibility lawsuit, you really have no way of knowing about the importance of having accessible online content.
Digital accessibility can become very technical and complicated. However, there are a lot of techniques you can learn and manage yourself to make your online content more accessible.
If you are a small business owner and you have not put any resources towards ensuring your content is accessible, you are missing out on a huge audience, and huge profits. This simple technique to create accessible hashtags will change your online presence.
In this article
Who Benefits from Accessible Hashtags?
The Benefits of Creating Accessible Hashtags
Some Digital Accessibility Stats
Are hashtags still valuable?
I’ve never been a big hash tagger myself. I tend to skip-over them in social posts and blogs. But when I started researching it, I found that they are still pretty valuable for marketing.
For instance, Instagram profiles with less than 1,000 followers, so we're just talking the smaller content creators, can get up to 29% more interaction when they add unique hashtags to their posts.
Even more impressive, Tweets with hashtags can increase engagement for individual people by 2X, and for businesses up to 50%. Those numbers are huge!
But things have changed a bit from the original days of hash tagging.
You need a strategy.
There are some things you need to consider nowadays when you are doing your hashtags. With the ever-changing algorithm and now AI in the mix, hashtags, according to the research, are not used as much for search as they used to be. So, if you are going to use them you need a plan,
You want quality over quantity. Keep them small, simple, and very relevant.
You don't need to stuff them with 12 hashtags for one post anymore (definitely don't be doing that).
Have a platform specific strategy. If you are on X, like we saw, hashtags can really help your post. You must have one or two strong ones. On Instagram you're still going to have multiple, but they are now capping how many you can put. All the others, LinkedIn, Tik Tok, all of them have specific strategies you should be looking at if you're going to be hash tagging in 2025.
Check out these resources to help with your hashtag strategy.
Hashtags statistics: should you use hashtags in 2025?
Hashtags in 2025. Do They Work?
Hashtag Strategies for 2025: Dos, Don’ts, and Proven Tips for Every Platform
What should you be using hashtags for in 2025?
There are three main categories where hashtags are still very useful for your business.
To build a community: To grow a community that you will be very active with.
To build a brand campaign: Spread awareness about a new company, upcoming promotion, or fundraiser.
For small niche awareness: For a very unique topic or to break down a larger niche to a smaller, more targeted audience.
If what you're doing for your business currently falls into any of those categories, hash tagging is still very valuable and can grow your audience and business.
Who benefits from accessible hashtags?
When you create accessible hashtags, it's really going to improve the overall user experience for EVERYBODY who interacts with your content. When we talk about the disability community specifically, we are talking about people who identify as blind or low vision, hearing impaired, and those with cognitive challenges. Each individual will have their own challenges interacting and consuming inaccessible content. Some of the barriers may include,
Blind or Low Vision
A high percentage of people with a vision impairment will use a screen reader to navigate the web. If hashtags aren't written accessibly the screen reader isn't going to be able to interpret it for them.
You also need to consider the contrast of your hashtags. By default, they are usually in that awful light blue text on a white background. This can be hard for people with low vision to see. You can’t change this on every platform, but when you can be sure to have high contrast for your hashtags.
Hearing impairments
You may wonder why someone with a hearing impairment would struggle to read a hashtag? If hashtags are used in videos or audio content, such as a podcast, those spoken words need to be provided in captions or a transcript for those who are hearing impaired. Captions, as you are probably aware, are only on the screen for a short time. If a hashtag is written accessibly, someone reading the captions will have a better chance of being able to comprehend it quickly.
Cognitive Challenges
Like people with vision impairments, many individuals with cognitive challenges also use screen readers. They are depending on that technology to help them learn, conduct business, shop, and engage with family and friends online. The assistive technology needs to be able to depict the correct meaning of content for them. Hashtags in particular can be hard for screen readers to understand if they are not created to be accessible.
Let’s remember, hashtags are just a bunch of letters jumbled together without spaces. Your brain needs to work harder (and faster if you are reading captions) in order to decipher an inaccessible hashtag. This can be especially hard for someone with a learning disability or other cognitive disabilities.
The Benefits of Creating Accessible Hashtags
If you are running a small business, you always want to reach more people, right? That's what we all want. We all need more customers, more clients, more interactions. On social media we need more people in our sphere. We need people for our businesses to flourish.
Here are SIX BENEFITS your business could see if you start creating accessible hashtags.
Reach More People
Screen readers can easily find accessible hashtags.
This makes your content discoverable by a wider audience, including people who rely on assistive technologies.
YAY! You just expanded your audience!
Create a Positive Experience
Easy-to-read hashtags improve the user experience for everyone. They reduce frustration for users with disabilities who may struggle with complex or confusing hashtags.
Boost Engagement
Accessible hashtags make it easier for users with disabilities to find and interact with your content. The whole point of using hashtags is to boost engagement with your followers/potential customers. Increased engagement leads to more clicks, more likes, more comments, and shares.
Improve Search Visibility
Search engines prioritize accessible content. Just as important as more engagement, is better search rankings. All the search bots work similarly to screen readers. They need to be able to read and interpret your content to rank it. Accessible, clear, and concise hashtags can improve your content's ranking in search results.
Competition is fierce these days. The more content you create in an accessible manner (your website, blog posts, videos, social posts, etc.), the better chance you have of improving your search visibility.
Okay, this next benefit is the one you really
need to pay attention to.
Competitive Advantage
Differentiate your brand by prioritizing accessibility. Digital accessibility isn’t a topic that is widely known about yet. The laws and guidelines are hard to understand and in a fluid state right now. As the momentum around web accessibility continues to grow, more and more people will come to understand its importance.
You have the opportunity RIGHT NOW to get ahead of the curve. Gain the competitive edge by reaching a wider audience than your competitors, who don’t know about this untapped marketing strategy.
Build Trust and Credibility
If you are using accessible hashtags and implementing accessibility into your digital content, you're going to build trust and credibility by demonstrating your commitment to inclusivity and accessibility. You will build trust with your audience by showing you care about their needs.
Whether your customer is disabled or not, all of them want to know that they are valued. So, this little step to learn how to make accessible hashtags is just going to help you reach an audience that you haven't before. You will be connecting with a very loyal customer base.
Some Digital Accessibility Stats
Approximately 1.3 billion people in the world have a disability. This is about 1 in 4 people. That means that someone in your circle likely has a disability, whether you know it or not.
This one's huge folks, companies are losing a combined $6 billion, that is billion with a B, dollars annually due to inaccessibility. Imagine if you got only .1% of that. That is MASSIVE!
We are back to the competitive advantage. Companies that prioritize accessibility on average see an 80% return on their investment compared to their competitors. So those who are investing in digital accessibility are seeing huge returns on that investment.
70% of adults with disabilities use social media. Just like anyone else, this community, my community, the disabled community uses social media to connect with people who have similar interests, hobbies, to find resources, to connect with people who share the same challenges. They are online just like anyone else would be.
Global Shoppers spent $1.08 billion on social commerce in 2023. The numbers aren't out yet for 2024, but those numbers are expected to have a compound annual growth of 10.8% for 2024 to 2029. What does this mean? This means that obviously people are spending a lot on social commerce. We're talking about the Tik Tock shops, Instagram ads, your YouTube shopping, Facebook ads - all of that.
This industry was more important to people with disabilities prior to 2020. Obviously, we know since then a lot more people have been doing a lot of their shopping and business online. But the disabled community has been online as long as they have been able to be online, as long as they've had the resources to; because being able to shop online and have things delivered to your home - your groceries, clothing, just the necessities, let alone entertainment and hobby stuff, it is a lot easier for most disabled people to have those items delivered to their home. They may not have any ability to leave their home, or it can be difficult and very complicated in order to find transportation and get assistance shopping. So, the social commerce aspect is super important to this community, and as you can see, they are obviously spending a lot of money online.
If you are a small business owner and you have an online presence this is an audience you want to get in front of.
How to Make Hashtags Accessible
This is going to be SUPER SIMPLE, and it will become second nature once you know how to do it. It will be the easiest accessibility task that you can accomplish and do today.
TIP ONE
Use clear and simple language. This is not a place to get fancy. This is not a place to use acronyms or industry specific terms unless you are targeting that market. Otherwise, keep it super simple and clear.
TIP TWO
Avoid using emojis and symbols. There are a couple of reasons to do this. Oftentimes screen reader software and other assistive technology software cannot even interpret the Emojis or symbols, so those will be completely missed.
If the screen reader DOES recognize symbols or emojis and is reading them aloud it can be highly annoying, particularly when you get the emoji spammers who put 15 smiley faces or high five, hugs, smiley face, thumbs up, pointing finger, etc.
(Sorry in advance to my screen reader users for this next line)
😄😄😄😄😄😄😄😄😄😄
That would be read aloud as, “grinning face with smiley eyes, grinning face with smiley eyes, grinning face with smiley eyes, grinning face with smiley eyes, grinning face with smiley eyes, grinning face with smiley eyes, grinning face with smiley eyes, grinning face with smiley eyes, grinning face with smiley eyes, grinning face with smiley eyes”
Let’s not do that.
TIP THREE
Make hashtags easy to remember. That's kind of a no-brainer. The whole point of using the hashtag is you want engagement. You want it to be catchy. You want other people to use it to spread awareness about you or your business. So, keep it simple, but make it memorable.
The first three tips are really common sense. Hopefully, you are already doing those things and that was just a reminder.
TIP FOUR
This is where we really are truly making it 100% accessible. You need to use camelCase to ensure its compatibility with screen readers and other assistive technology.
What is camelCase?
CamelCase is when you are writing words or phrases without spaces, where the first letter of each new word is capitalized. When you are doing this the very first word is not required to be capitalized in order for it to be accessible. The first word can be upper or lowercase. Each following word must start with an uppercase letter. This does include "the," "as," "a," "of," "for." All those short little words that you may not think should have an uppercase letter to start with.
Let's get into some examples!
Examples of Accessible and Inaccessible Hashtags
Below you can visually see what camelCase hashtags look like. Pay attention to each new word and the letter casing. If you would like to hear how a screen reader interprets these hashtags, check out that portion of the YouTube video.
Wrapping It Up
Hopefully, this tutorial was helpful and easy for you to understand the importance of accessible hashtags and how to easily create them. Before you know it, it will just become a habit, and you won't even have to think about it.
Should we start the #MakeItAcessible? Like I mentioned, I’ve never been a big hash tagger, but I am open to seeing how it might work to spread the word about digital accessibility.
Until next time, go out there and make it more accessible.
Get started with digital accessibility.
Check off six common online accessibility barriers as you create your content each month.
