Social Media Endorsements Require Full Disclosure

Do you get paid for your Insta posts, Twitter tweets or any other sort of endorsement on social media? Well, per the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, you’d better disclose that.

The FTC is an independent agency of the U.S. government whose principle missions are consumer protection and working to eliminate anti-competitive business practices. As such, the FTC is responsible for everything from busting up illegal monopolies to making sure the Kardashians include an #ad on their paid Insta posts. (I’m sure Kim K. et al love Fit Tea and Sugar Bear chewy hair vitamins, but if they’re getting paid to love that stuff, they have to let all us fangirls know.)

The FTC got very public about cracking down on very-high-profile celebrities’ lack of ad disclosure in 2016. But people with a bananas number of social media followers — Kim Kardashian West, for instance, currently has more than 98 million Instagram followers — are not the only ones who can get paid for social media advertising. In fact, people with only (“only”) a few million followers, down to as low as 500,000, also can get paid several thousand dollars per ad post. It’s these people the FTC presumably will be watching in 2017.

Per a recent press release (April 19, 2017):

After reviewing numerous Instagram posts by celebrities, athletes, and other influencers, Federal Trade Commission staff recently sent out more than 90 letters reminding influencers and marketers that influencers should clearly and conspicuously disclose their relationships to brands when promoting or endorsing products through social media… They mark the first time that FTC staff has reached out directly to educate social media influencers themselves.

The FTC’s Endorsement Guides provide that if there is a “material connection” between an endorser and an advertiser — in other words, a connection that might affect the weight or credibility that consumers give the endorsement — that connection should be clearly and conspicuously disclosed, unless it is already clear from the context of the communication.

In addition to providing background information on when and how marketers and influencers should disclose a material connection in an advertisement, the letters each addressed one point specific to Instagram: Consumers viewing posts on mobile devices typically see only the first three lines of a longer post unless they click “more,” which many people don’t do. The FTC letters informed recipients that, when making endorsements on Insta, they should disclose any paid endorsement above the “more” button.

The disclosures themselves also have to be obvious — so, no disclosure tag buried in a string of twenty other hashtags — and transparent: something like #ad versus something like #sp (presumably meaning “sponsored”) or “Thanks Fit Tea!” with no hashtag at all.

The FTC is not publicly releasing the names of the letter recipients, but man oh man do I wish I knew who got them. More importantly though, why should you care about any of this? Well, mostly because you, dear model, are an influencer on social media (or you could be).

Sure, you’re not a Kardashian, but you do have a loyal following of friends and fans online who you could definitely get to purchase, attend or like any number of things. The FTC’s rules apply to all marketers and endorsers, regardless of size of following, product or industry — and getting caught violating FTC regulations carries a pretty steep fine.

If you are not already doing these sorts of endorsements and you have a big social media following, what are you waiting for? Send out some feelers and hustle that income stream. Just make sure you’re not violating any terms set forth by your network. If you are already monetizing in this way, make sure you are including clear and understandable disclosures. And if a brand you’re working with discourages you from tagging your paid posts, it’s time to walk away from that deal, because in the end, it’s your account and you are responsible for its contents.

/rant