7 Things Marketers Should Know About the New FTC Social Media Guidelines

Posted on by Chris Lucas

It’s time to be on high alert when establishing relationships between brands and influencers on social media. For the first time in five years, the Federal Trade Commission has updated the FAQ page of its endorsement guidelines.

FTC ComplianceTransparency isn’t new, but with the updated guidelines it’s better to be crystal clear now more than ever when disclosing for contests, sweepstakes, videos and images. To avoid consequences—prepare now, you will not regret it.

  1. Define endorser relationships clearly

No matter the platform, promotions must clearly state if the person promoting the brand or product is a result of a paid endorsement from the company in question. It’s not enough to simply put it in a bio or about section; every Tweet, Facebook post, etc. has to disclose the affiliation.

  1. Disclose, disclose and disclose a little more

It can be quite obvious when a professional athlete or celebrity is a spokesperson for a product. So does that mean they should disclose that they’re being paid every time they tweet/post about the product? Yes. While the relationship could be clear to most of their followers, it can still be tricky to determine whether the followers are aware of the relationship according to the FTC, hence the disclosure recommendation.

  1. Take it from the top on YouTube

YouTubers—it’s not enough anymore to have a disclaimer on the details page. Disclosures now should be made at the beginning of the video and preferably (to the FTC) repeated a couple of times for longer-form videos. A recent study named YouTube as the top social media site to introduce a new company-offering a staggering 14% conversion rate. With this kind of influence, YouTube is a great platform for hosting a contest, if you properly abide by the rules.

  1. Endorsements in video

Just like YouTube, videos on any site that include an endorsement have to make a disclaimer aside from the description of the video. Streaming video, which is typically used by video game reviewers sponsored by gaming companies, needs disclosure throughout the video.

  1. Use clear language in contest and sweepstakes rules

Any contest entry that is accompanied by an endorsement on social media requires a disclosure. The contest sponsor is responsible for ensuring entrants make the disclosure. Using a hashtag like “sweepstakes” or “contest” should suffice but be careful, something that should be obvious like a special hashtag for a special event like, #VMA2015, isn’t specific enough. To completely comply with the FTC guidelines the hashtag should read something like #VMA2015contest.

  1. Twitter—limited space isn’t an excuse

The 140-character space Twitter allows follows the same rules for disclosure as any other social media site. ‘Promotion’ and ‘Sponsored’ use only 9 characters but if you are tight for space there are shorter options like ‘Paid ad’ or ‘Ad:’ and they are just as effective.

  1. Fake Facebook Likes

If the account isn’t tied to an actual customer, the FTC has officially declared the ‘like’ as fraudulent. The FTC has recognized that this is an issue that could happen to anyone but there are measures that can be taken to prevent faulty ‘likes.’ Even though last November the FTC ended “like gates” in social media campaigns, they still advise against incentivizing Facebook ‘likes’ for promotional/campaign purposes to prevent faulty likes.

The new regulations may seem overwhelming at first but it shouldn’t prevent marketers from being successful. Adhering to the new social media guidelines is the best bet to avoid running into any trouble. When in doubt, always disclose.

Chris Lucas FormstockChris Lucas is vice president of marketing at Formstack.

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