By: Mary Sahagun

If your brand is preparing for a big holiday campaign or wrapping up Q4 with a final marketing push, here’s something that’s easy to overlook: is your content reaching everyone who wants to engage with it?

Jessica Fabus Cheng, an accessibility strategist and Mrs. DC International 2025, knows that the answer is often no—not because people don’t care, but because many brands simply haven’t been shown how to include everyone.

“Many brands aren’t trying to exclude anyone,” she says. “They just haven’t been shown how to include everyone.”

After surviving a rare form of thyroid cancer that left her with just 80 percent of her vocal function, Jessica Fabus Cheng made a decision: if her voice had limits, her impact wouldn’t. Now a digital inclusion advocate, she helps brands make social media and business strategy more accessible through her Turnkey Accessibility framework, proving that even small changes can create meaningful results.

“Accessibility doesn’t have to be complicated,” Cheng says. “It’s often simple, quick fixes that can have a noticeable impact.”

With this in mind, Jessica has outlined five ways to help more people access, enjoy, and connect with your content, just in time for your next campaign:

1. Caption Your Videos for Broader Engagement

This one’s a logical step. Captions aren’t just helpful for people who are deaf or hard of hearing. They also make your content easier to engage with for people watching with the sound off, in noisy environments, or while multitasking (which, let’s be honest, is common for many of us).

Instagram and TikTok both offer auto-caption features now, and there are plenty of tools to fine-tune them if you want more control. “Captions are about clarity,” Cheng says. “They let people stay in the moment with you; no matter where or how they’re watching.”

2. Provide Image Descriptions for Enhanced Context

Posting a great photo or graphic? Take a moment to describe it, either in the alt-text field or even directly in the caption. For people who use screen readers, this description provides the context that others see.

So instead of a caption like “What a day!” under a photo of your team at an event, you might say, “Our team is celebrating with coffee and confetti after wrapping up our holiday shoot.” Short, clear, and suddenly everyone’s included.

“These small additions help people feel like they’re part of the full story,” Cheng explains. “And that’s what builds connection.”

3. Capitalize Hashtags to Improve Accessibility

This is such a simple change, but it can make a significant difference. When you use hashtags, capitalize the first letter of each word so screen readers can pronounce them properly. For example, write #InclusiveMarketing instead of #inclusivemarketing.

“Screen readers read lowercase hashtags as one long word,” Cheng says. “It’s confusing at best and completely unreadable at worst. CamelCase fixes that in a second.”

Bonus: It also helps sighted users scan and understand your hashtags faster.

4. Use High-Contrast Colors for Better Readability

Pretty doesn’t always mean practical. That beige text on a white background might match your aesthetic, but for users with low vision, or just a bright screen, it can be difficult to read.

Try to follow the rule of strong contrast. Black on white, navy on yellow, dark green on cream. There are free tools online to test your color choices, but trust your eyes, too. If you have to squint, someone else won’t even bother trying.

“Accessibility should never compete with good design,” Cheng says. “It should be part of good design.”

5. Use Clear and Approachable Language in Your Messaging

Plain language helps your message land. That means avoiding jargon, trimming the fluff, and writing the way real people speak. It’s especially important for audiences who are neurodiverse, non-native speakers, or just busy.

This doesn’t mean oversimplifying your voice. It just means being intentional with it.

“Good communication is inclusive communication,” Cheng says. “The goal is for your message to stick, not for people to work hard just to understand it.”

Accessibility: A Mindset, Not Just an Add-On

These five changes don’t require a big budget or a full rebrand. They just ask for a bit of awareness and a willingness to pause and think about who you’re creating for.

That mindset shift is at the heart of Jessica Fabus Cheng’s work. After losing much of her voice, she found new ways to use it: hosting a podcast, raising future service dogs through the Guide Dog Foundation with her family, and helping brands understand that digital inclusion is not about perfection. It’s about progress

Her Triple A Framework, Awareness, Allyship, Action, is designed to help people move from intention to impact.

As you prep for end-of-year launches and start planning for 2025, this is the perfect time to pause and ask: who might be missing from our message? And how can we invite them in?

Because when your content is accessible, everyone gets to be part of the conversation, and that’s where real connection (and true growth) begins.