Ink Foundry - Social Media Marketing and Word of Mouth Marketing

Approximate Read Time: 5 minutes

Many people are asking why we need Federal Trade Commission (FTC) guidelines for adequate disclosure for the relationship between brands and bloggers in the first place. The primary benefit of disclosure is trust. If a blogger doesn’t respect his/her readers, and readers don’t trust the blogger, then guess what? Readers will stop visiting the site. Brands need to be equally upfront to avoid any negative repercussions from consumers. And consumers need to be able to rely on what they read in a blog. And do you really want to have a relationship under false pretenses?

The Word Of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) recently hosted a webinar to discuss the pending FTC regulations on adequate disclosure when any type of compensation is exchanged between brands, bloggers and other online influencers.

WOMMA, has initiated a project, The WOMMA Disclosure Project, that is defining the parameters by which brands, influencers and bloggers disclose their “material relationship”. For brands this means developing a core set of principles which guide relationships with bloggers and influencers. Bloggers and other digital influencers will also need to create and clearly communicate when they have accepted compensation.

The WOMMA webinar panel included Paul Rand, WOMMA-President Elect and President/CEO of Zocalo Group who served as moderator; John Bell, WOMMA President and Managing Director at 360° Digital Influence; Jory Des Jardin, Co-Founder and President, Strategic Alliances at BlogHer; Sean Corcoran, Interactive Marketing Analyst at Forrester Research; Tom Collinger, Chair of the Integrated Marketing Communications program at the Medill School Northwestern University; and Anthony DiResta, WOMMA’s general counsel and partner at Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP.

Another benefit to both brands and bloggers, according to Jory Des Jardin, companies that use bloggers who openly disclose the relationship between themselves and the brand will rise to top with customers. Based on her experience that she shared on the WOMMA webinar, the bloggers who have been fully transparent with readers about their relationships with brands, have witnessed increased traffic to their site.

Overview
I’ve highlighted some key points that stood out to me on the webinar, but I encourage you to check the Ethics Review on the WOMMA site and the resources listed at the end of the article.

For both brands and agencies, the pending FTC guidelines most likely will not represent a dramatic departure from current standard operating best practices. According to Jory Des Jardin, disclosure for review blogs is similar to advertorial disclosure from the traditional media world. Traditional media outlets such as daily newspapers, television and radio all employ transparent practices regarding disclosure and the FTC is expected to bring its policies up to date with current technology.

Four Top Takeaways:

• Disclosure on both the brand and the digital influencer sides should be necessary and non-negotiable.
• There will be an expectation of brands to monitor activity. Advertisers/brands could be held liable for bloggers who fail to disclose.
• The “influencer” who has or will receive some form of incentive/payment/gift has an obligation to their readers to disclosure the relationship.
• If money or a product is either loaned or given with out the expectation of being returned (kind of hard to sample and then return that bottle of wine!), then it needs to be disclosed in an obvious location on both the brand and the influencer site.

Nine Best Practices:

Any list of best practices developed now, will invariably have to continue to evolve with the technology and current thinking. We will continue to update this list of social media marketing disclosure best practices as they become available.
• For The Brand
  • Publish a clear, detailed ‘terms of engagement on the website, brand microsite or campaign site.
  • Make a commitment to work with third party influencers who adhere to clear disclosure best practices by creating a one page influencer agreement that requires bloggers to, as John Bell writes, “state their true opinion.”
  • Request that all third party influencers link back to the brands ‘terms of engagement’ policy.
  • Create site badges for recurring programs.
• For The Influencer
  • If brands don’t have a ‘terms of engagement’ for working with bloggers, then ask that they create one. It doesn’t have to be the Magna Carta, a simple one page document will do.
  • Commit to working with brands who adhere to standard disclosure best practices.
  • Disclose in each post.
  • Create a policy that is visible and easy to read on your website, blog or Twitter account.
  • Include brand affiliation and /or your likelihood that you will receive compensation in the future in your bio
    • My fantasy disclosure endorsement: “I receive a new pair of Gucci boots each Fall and wear them proudly for all to see. I received them from the company and I write about them not because they were free, but because I love them from the bottom of my soul.” Gucci, are you listening?

  Resources

  • John Bell’s blog – http://johnbell.typepad.com/weblog/2009/09/best-practice-disclosure-what-brands-should-do-and-why.html
  • Izea’s Disclosure Policy Generator- http://disclosurepolicy.org/generator/generate_policy
  • MommyDaddy Blog – a good example of both a site wide disclosure and a brand disclosure on the same page, plus a nifty coding system- http://mommydaddyblog.com/disclosure/
  • WOMMA – http://allthings.womma.org/
  • Blog With Integrity – http://blogwithintegrity.com/
  Tagged as Anthony DiResta, digital influencers, FTC adequate disclosure guidelines, John Bell, Jory Des Jardin, Paul Rand, Sean Corcoran, social media marketing, Tom Collinger, WOMMA Disclosure Project, Word of mouth marketing association
  Categorized as News, Social Media Marketing Articles
  • Posted on Thursday, September 17th, 2009
  • 4 comments