What you’ll learn in this post:

• Why accessibility on social media is a doula business issue, not just a kind gesture
• How to write hashtags so screen readers can actually read them
• A realistic, no-shame approach to alt text, including what to write and where to add it on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn
• Where emoji belong in a post (and where they really don’t)
• How to caption every video you share, and why auto-captions alone aren’t enough
• What happens when important words only live inside a graphic, and how to fix it

Why accessibility matters for doulas

I am hard of hearing. I wear a hearing aid. I rely on closed captions more than most people realize, and when I land on a social media video with no captions, I sit there trying to decide whether to crank the volume and hope for the best or scroll past. Usually, I scroll past. That person just lost me as a viewer, and in some cases, they lost me as a potential client.

Roughly one in four adults in the United States lives with some form of disability. Some are pregnant. Some are actively looking for a doula. The families you want to serve are already scrolling, and a lot of what we post in this field quietly shuts them out.

The good news is that most of the fixes are small. You don’t need new equipment, a new platform, or a new aesthetic. You need five habits. Here they are, in the order I’d tackle them.

1. Write your hashtags in CamelCase

CamelCase means capitalizing the first letter of each word inside a hashtag. #BirthDoula, not #birthdoula. #LaborSupport, not #laborsupport.

I started doing this years ago because it simply read easier to me. Now I know the actual reason. Screen readers, which many blind and low-vision users rely on, read hashtags out loud. When a hashtag is all lowercase, the screen reader can’t tell where one word ends and the next begins. #birthdoula gets read as one long mashed-together sound. #BirthDoula gets read as two clear words.

Capitalization does not change whether the hashtag works for search or discovery. Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and TikTok all treat #BirthDoula and #birthdoula as the same tag. You lose nothing by capitalizing, and you make your content readable to people who would otherwise skim past.

Today’s next step: Look at your last three posts. Go back in and edit the hashtags into CamelCase. Save a clean list of your most-used hashtags, already capitalized, in your notes app so you can paste them in going forward.

2. Add alt text to every image

Alt text is a short written description that assistive technology reads aloud to people who can’t see the image. It’s also what shows up when an image fails to load.

This is the one I have quietly struggled with the longest. I’ve tried. I’ve been given bad advice over the years. I’ve mimicked what other people were doing and later realized they didn’t know the why or the how either. Alt text has felt hard for a long time, and when something feels hard, most of us avoid it. If that’s where you are, you’re not behind. You’re normal.

Here’s the shift that helped me. Alt text isn’t a description of what the photo looks like. It’s a description of what the photo is doing in the post. The purpose, not the pixels.

A photo of me at a birth, captioned with a post about staying calm during long labors, doesn’t need “A woman with brown hair wearing scrubs stands next to a hospital bed.” It needs “Robin stands beside a laboring client, one hand on her back, during a long hospital birth.” The first version describes the picture. The second one describes the point.

Skip “photo of” and “image of” as openers. Screen readers already announce that it’s an image. Aim for 125 to 250 characters. If an image is purely decorative, mark it decorative rather than writing filler.

Where to add alt text:

• Instagram: When you post, tap Advanced settings, then Accessibility, then Write alt text. You can also edit existing posts and add it after the fact.
• Facebook: When uploading, click Edit on the image, then Alternative text.
• LinkedIn: Click the Alt button on the image before posting.

For writing guidance I trust, the Section 508 alt text guide from the US government is plain, free, and accurate.

Today’s next step: Add alt text to your next post. Just one. Then the one after that. It gets faster every time.

3. Put emoji at the end, not in the middle

I love an emoji as a break at the end of a sentence. A single one, placed well, adds warmth. That’s not the problem.

The problem is what screen readers do with them. Every emoji gets read aloud by its full name. A heart isn’t a heart, it’s “red heart.” A sparkle isn’t a sparkle, it’s “sparkles.” Three in a row becomes “sparkles sparkles sparkles” in the middle of your sentence.

Now picture a post that uses a flame emoji in place of the word “hot,” or a baby emoji in place of the word “baby,” or the poop emoji as a swap for a stronger word. (I’m not going to do that one, but you know the one I mean.) A screen reader can’t infer what you meant. It reads the emoji name and keeps going, which leaves the listener trying to piece together a sentence with the wrong noun in it.

The rule I use: emoji at the end of a sentence or post. One is the ceiling. Never as a substitute for a word. If you want to double-check how any emoji sounds when read aloud, Emojipedia lists the official name for every single one.

Today’s next step: Scroll your last five posts. Move any mid-sentence emoji to the end, or cut them entirely if they were standing in for a word.

4. Caption every video

Auto-captions are a starting point, not a finish line. I caption every video I post and turn on closed captions during my live trainings, because I need them myself and because half the people watching do too. The other half are watching in a waiting room, a car pickup line, or next to a sleeping baby, with the sound off.

Auto-captions also get creative. In my training captions, the word “doula” often appears as “jeweler” or “duelist.” I’ve seen “perineum” become things I won’t repeat here. If you rely on auto-captions without reviewing them, your video is going out into the world saying something you didn’t say.

Review every caption before you publish. Fix the terminology our field uses. Your captions are part of your message, not separate from it.

One more thing on video. If you’re using any flashing or strobe effects, flag it. Fast flashes can trigger seizures in people with photosensitive epilepsy. A quick “flashing lights warning” at the start of the video is a small courtesy that matters.

Today’s next step: On your next video, turn on captions, then read them before you post. Fix “jeweler” back to “doula” and anything else the auto-caption invented.

5. Stop relying on text baked into graphics

I see this one constantly. A beautiful quote card. An eye-catching carousel. All the important words are flattened into the image itself, and the caption below is just a couple of emoji and a hashtag.

Flattened text is invisible to assistive technology. The screen reader lands on that post and has nothing to read. Someone who can’t see the graphic hears silence where your message should be. Someone whose image isn’t loading sees an empty square.

The fix is straightforward. If words matter enough to put on a graphic, they matter enough to put in the caption too. A quote card needs the quote in the caption. A tip graphic needs the tip written out. A carousel of statistics needs those statistics written in the text below.

This isn’t about redesigning your content. It’s about not letting your message live only in a place where assistive tech can’t reach it.

Today’s next step: Look at your last graphic-heavy post. Open it up. Add the text from the image to the caption. Do it on the next one, too.

This is a practice, not a test

You don’t have to do all five at once. You don’t have to go back and retroactively fix every post you’ve ever made. Pick one. Start with the one that feels easiest, or the one that bothered you most while you were reading.

Accessibility isn’t a checklist you complete. It’s a practice you build into how you show up. The families you want to serve are already out there, looking for a doula who gets it. This is one of the ways they find out that you do.

I’d love to hear which one you try first.