TikTok for charities: Making your content accessible for all

TikTok offers charities a fantastic space to spread awareness, share impactful stories, and connect with new audiences. However, it’s essential that charities on TikTok ensure that the content they create is accessible to everyone. 

Creating accessible content on TikTok not only helps your charity reach a wider audience, but it also embeds inclusion across your digital channels, ensuring that everyone can enjoy and engage with your videos. Here are some easy ways to make sure that your TikTok is accessible.

Captioning your videos 

For TikTok users who are Deaf or hard of hearing, captions are crucial to enjoying your content. They also help viewers who might be in noisy environments or are watching without sound.  

TikTok offers an automatic captioning feature, which makes content a lot quicker to create if you’re limited on time. However, it is good practice to review and edit the captions for accuracy. Here’s how: 

• Enable Auto-Captions: After recording your video, go to the editing screen. Tap on the Captions button, and TikTok will generate captions automatically. 

• Edit Captions: Ensure that the captions are accurate and easy to read. Correct any mistakes by clicking on the text and choosing the edit button and adjust the timing using the set duration button. 

Use descriptive text or audio descriptions 

Using descriptive language in your captions can support individuals with visual impairments who rely on screen readers to consume TikTok content. Audio descriptions are another great way to support your viewers who are visually impaired. 

• When Adding Text: Describe the important visual elements and actions. For example, instead of just writing ‘Check this out!’, you could write ‘Check out our volunteers planting trees in our community garden.’
• Audio Descriptions: This is very similar to how you might use descriptive text, only its including in your narration. You can add narration to a video by using the voice-over feature. 

Use CamelCase hashtags   

We recommend writing hashtags in CamelCase, which is capitalising the beginning of each new word (e.g., #AccessibilityMatters or #MakeADifference). This helps screen readers interpret them correctly. 

Photosensitive epilepsy toggle & warning  

TikTok’s photosensitive epilepsy toggle is a vital accessibility feature. While flashing lights can enhance videos, they might trigger seizures in those with photosensitive epilepsy, so use them cautiously. 

• Warning: Place a warning at the beginning of your video if it includes flashing lights or rapid transitions, giving viewers a chance to skip if needed. This can be a simple caption that says, “Flash warning!” or “TW: Flashing lights”. This also helps the algorithm know which videos to include in the toggle feature.  
• Toggle Feature: If you would like to avoid photosensitive videos, you can tap on the Profile button, then the Menu, then select Settings and privacy. From there, you can click Accessibility and turn the Remove photosensitive videos setting on or off.

Readable captions 

If you’ve spent the time on creating a great video, editing the captions, making sure they’re timed correctly, I’m sure you want them to be read! It’s important to optimise our captions, so that they’re readable to everyone. 

• Colour: Colour can play a surprisingly big role in making your content accessible. Did you know that, in the UK, roughly 4.5% of the population experience some form of colour blindness? That’s 3 million people! You can use colour contrast tools to test your content’s colour accessibility. 
• Backgrounds: Make sure that your captions aren’t on a busy background, which will make them hard to read. When planning your video, keep in mind how much space you’ll need for captions or use the text effect that provides a blank background.

Test what works best for your charity 

We always recommend experimenting with these tips to find out how you can authentically and realistically incorporate them into your everyday content. You can show the content to people you know who use accessibility features to ensure your content works for them. 

Additional accessibility features 

 TikTok also has a lot of other features that can make the app a more accessible place. Some of these include: 

Creating accessible content ensures everyone can engage with your organisation’s work, so it’s worth building in these tips into your plan from the start. By using features like captions or audio descriptions, you make your content and your work more welcoming for all.

Let’s all keep adapting together to make TikTok a platform where everyone feels respected and included.