We’ve recently seen many social media platforms become more committed to making accessibility a priority — and now Instagram Stories is the latest platform to be made more accessible.
Instagram recently introduced a new “Captions” sticker, which automatically creates text captions for videos shared as part of Stories. Although this feature is still working out a few glitches, eventually it will allow all users to automatically add closed captioning with the simple click of a button (and then edit any captions that may have been misspelled).
There are several reasons why this feature is a positive step forward for the popular social media platform. For one, it expands the audience for Stories, allowing them to be experienced by audiences who may not have previously been able to partake in the feature. Additionally, it’s a valuable time-saver for social media marketers, as they will not have to transcribe the captions by hand, but rather make quick edits to the caption before posting.
At the moment, this feature is only available to a select (and apparently random) group of Instagram users, but we expect that it will continue to roll out to more accounts in the coming weeks.
Also new: the ability to add background media to your Stories via filters. Select the “Disappear” filter by Instagram and click Add Media (it can be photo or video).
Check your app to see if you’re one of the lucky few who currently have access Instagram’s “Captions” sticker.
Looking for more ways to improve the accessibility of your content? Check out our primer on why alt text is important for your organization, then read our complete guide for including alt text on your brand’s website and social media posts.
