Influencers & Brands: How to Avoid Having the FTC Knock on Your Door
/The world of influencer marketing is growing day by day.
It's one of those industries that has been around for a long time. but it is only getting its notoriety now due to new technology and the use of social media. It is also the industry where we see its activity in everyday life.
It could be a commercial with a celebrity endorsing a product. It's also in the image of a girl on your Instagram feed who is claiming that she just got this brand new bathing suit, for example. We know that the celebrity got paid. What we don't know is whether the girl in your Instagram feed paid for that swimsuit on her own or a brand has gifted the swimsuit in exchange for a post. Or maybe she did get paid to wear the swimsuit and to post about it.
It is these gray areas where the FTC of the Federal Trade Commission is watching. Not like Big Brother watching but the FTC is in news feeds and reviewing descriptions of what people are posting.
Influencers, this post is for you. Because the first issue we need to tackle is what you're doing. If you are accepting money or gifts or some sort of incentive to post about a particular brand or product, you are a business. It’s a trade. Let's not pretend that you are not an entrepreneur because you are one. So all entrepreneurs should know the rules and regulations around their business.
Brands, this post is also for you. You should understand the rules and regulations about working with influencers in social media. You should be aware of what the influencers are putting on and having clear rules that you and your own team follows.
Here are a few key issues that you can monitor when using influencer marketing:
Nothing But the Truth
Make sure any ad is truthful and not misleading. Just because it's social media doesn't mean that there is a lesser standard for truthfulness. So all tweets, Facebook posts, Pinterest boards, Instagram posts, Snapchat posts, YouTube videos, etc need to be truthful. Sometimes influencers like to exaggerate. Or they sometimes think adding additional things to make the ad to make it look a bit more interesting will help you keep the brand as a partner. Don’t do this. Avoid this. Only post what is given to you or get permission for any editorial additions or changes with the brand. Brands, don’t peddle lies into social media. It doesn’t help you in the long run and your reputation will be tarnished. Protect yourself and your business.
Receipts to Back Up the Claim
You have to substantiate all advertising claims. Sometimes this aimed at medical, health and beauty products but it can be anything. If you saw a cereal advertisement on TV claiming to have fortified iron in it, then you would feel pretty confident about that claim. Because you know there are rules about what can be said. They have to maintain some truth or that they have some reports to show that their claim is true. The FTC rules this area and its the same for any kind of claim made on social media.
This includes anything expressly said such as “This will cure cancer.” And it also includes implied claims. An example would be a video of a girl putting on lotion and the lotion in the video clears up her acne. If you are the influencer, it’s a good practice to ask if the claims made by the brand are true. Don’t be afraid to do this - remember your own business is linked to this. Brands, you better be ready to back up any claim you are making about your product. The proof is in the report.
Disclose, Disclose, Disclose.
When you're dealing with advertisements, you have to disclose that it's an advertisement. What does that mean? It means that within the body of social media posts, it should clearly say that this is an ad.
You would be surprised about many ways where you can go wrong with this. For instance, the FTC does not want to see your #ad lost within your description or your other hashtags. I would even say the best practice would be to make sure that the #ad is at the very beginning. So consumers seeing the post will automatically know that this is an advertisement.\
Also, simply just saying thanks to a brand is not enough to disclose. You'll have to say “paid partnership with the brand” in order for it to be considered a disclosure. Avoid using links to be the ad disclosure by itself.
The way that the FTC sees it is that there should be no question to the consumer about whether the social media post is an ad. If they have to do more then simply looking at it to know that it is an ad, the disclosure is not up to snuff.
Follow the FTC Guides
When the FTC realized that their reasoning for sending out letters to influencers about the stuff that they were doing wrong, they wrote an enforcement guide. Everyone in the influencer marketing industry should know it. Here are some of the highlights:
Having a social media policy is a must for brands;
Training agencies, employees and influencers about the social media policy;
Preparing contracts governing the behavior of advertisement companies and social media influencers;
Reviewing sponsored content to ensure that all rules have been followed; and
Being prepared to take action against ad companies and influencers for failing to follow policies (read: terminations).
Though the list above seems more centered on brands, the FTC also has some guidelines for influencers. One major thing to take away from the guide is that every single interaction with a brand should be done in writing. Anything promised, anything gifted, anything expected should be in writing and should be signed off by the influencer and the brand. All of this is done to ensure that there is transparency and there is a clear understanding of what each party should get out of this relationship.
If you can follow these four things discussed here, then you can be pretty sure that the FTC will not be looking at your profile or brand too hard unless they really liked it and they want to buy something. Or just admire you. Either one.
If you have any questions about anything discussed here or are curious to know how you can better protect yourself, your brand and your business, feel free to contact me. We do offer a free consultation and free website review for anyone interested.
