As most of you know, WOMMA has helped shape and lead the charge for effective and meaningful social media disclosure. The recently introduced FTC Guidelines, in fact, make numerous positive references to WOMMA’s Ethics Code.
As a next step in the process, WOMMA is working to finalize the explicit best practices for social media disclosure for both marketers and bloggers* (like the FTC, WOMMA applies the term “bloggers” to refer to individual posting online content, whatever the channel). Comments will be accepted until January 5 and final guidelines will be submitted shortly thereafter.
Our goals: Facilitate dialog around and provide explicit recommendations around:
- Where and how marketers can effectively and transparently disclose — and be in compliance with FTC Guidelines
- Where and how “bloggers” can effectively and transparently disclose — and be in compliance with FTC Guidelines
WOMMA has been following a very deliberate process to gain membership and industry consensus on these issues
- Began dialog at 2008 WOMMA Summit
- Convened expert panel on transparency and disclosure
- Facilitated discussion on “Living Ethics” blog
- Drafted preliminary disclosure guidelines
- Reviewed preliminary disclosure guidelines at 2009 WOMMA Summit (November 20)
Our next steps are to post current guidelines here on the Living Ethics blog for feedback and then to issue final recommendations.
Please review all of the following information and provide any specific suggestions on what would make the direction either clearer or most consistent.
Key platforms we’re covering:
- Blogs/forums
- Video and photo sharing sites
- Social Networks
- Review Sites
- Other forms of user generated content
Our Guiding Principles:
- Disclosure must be clear and conspicuous
- Language must be unambiguous
- Considerations must be given to targeted consumer
- Disclosure must appear “above the fold”
Marketers’ responsibilities:
- Educate “bloggers” regarding responsibilities
- Educate internal corporate audiences regarding responsibilities: create a “culture of compliance”
- Require disclosure from “bloggers”
- Monitor to ensure disclosure is happening
“Blogger” Responsibilities
- Confirm understanding of responsibilities with marketers
- Disclose all material connections
- Communicate proactively with marketer to demonstrate compliance
Best practices for: Blog Disclosure:
- Editorial blog
- Disclose any product, service or compensation provided by a marketer
- Disclosure requirement:
- As part of editorial copy
- “I received ____ from (company X) as a sample, to review, etc.”
- As part of editorial copy
- Review blog
- Disclose any product, service or compensation provided by a marketer
- Disclosure requirements:
- As part of editorial copy
- “I received (X product or service) from (company X) to review”
- “I was paid by (company X) to review”
- As part of editorial copy
- Create “Disclosure and Relationships” section on web site
Best practices for: Video Sharing Sites
- Video sharing sites
- Disclosure options:
- As part of video content
- “I received (X product or service) from (company X) to review/create this video
- “I was paid by (company X) to review/create this video”
- As part of video description
- As part of video content
- Disclosure options:
Best practices for: Photo Sharing Sites
- Photo sharing sites
- Disclosure requirement:
- As part of photo description
- “I received (X product or service) from (company X) to create this
- “I was paid by (company X) to create this”
- As part of photo description
- Disclosure requirement:
Best practices for: Social Networks
- Social networks:
- Disclosure options:
- As part of photo or video description (see photo and video sharing sites best practices)
- As part of status update
- “I received (X product or service from (company X)
- “I was paid by (company X)
- Create “Disclosures and Relationships” section on profile
- Disclosure options:
Best practices for: Review Sites
- Review sites:
- Disclose any product, service or compensation provided by a marketer
- Disclosure requirements:
- As part of editorial copy
- “I received (X product or service) from (company X) to review”
- I was paid by (company X) to review”
- As part of editorial copy
- Create “Disclosure and Relationship” section on profile of website
Best practices for: Twitter
- Twitter
- Disclosure requirement:
- Must clearly state hash tag within tweet
- #spon or #paid
- Must clearly state hash tag within tweet
- Create link to “Disclosures and Relationships” section on profile
- Disclosure requirement:
Dan Rua 2:37 pm on January 5, 2010 Permalink
Thanks WOMMA for trying to capture/define best practices for disclosure of material connections in endorsements. As a blogger, advertiser and investor in multiple companies using or providing tools to this industry such as IZEA, I see tremendous value from a single, simple standard for all of WOM. I think that should be WOMMA’s top priority, to maximize adoption and simplify enforcement.
With that in mind, I’m concerned that the current proposal is too complicated and tries to do too much, while also covering too little. As has been noted in prior comments, there are multiple material connections that aren’t just payment or product; yet the proposal doesn’t include flexibility for that spectrum. It also doesn’t handle the scenario of having a material connection to the competitor of the subject of a post (e.g. wouldn’t a reader want to know if a Walmart-sponsored blogger writes about Target?) or how to handle that large portion of content that isn’t specifically a review (e.g. posts or tweets about a movie that hasn’t come out yet — they aren’t reviews, they are just spreading the word about something coming). There is also no mention of scenarios where there exists a material connection (i.e. display advertiser) that isn’t specific to a piece of content, but is often a wink-nod part of gaining coverage in editorial or elsewhere.
Unfortunately, when the proposal does try to cover multiple situations (e.g. different content streams, sites, networks), it does so with such specificity that it complicates enforcement and potentially creates standard-creep depending upon the media. Remember, divergent, media-specific standards are part of what created uncertainty in the first place:
○ TV: disclosure required for infomercials, but not celebrities or in-show product placements
○ Movies: no disclosure of product placements
○ Radio: no disclosure required for talk radio endorsements
○ Newspapers: “advertorial” phrase for sponsored editorial, no disclosure by reviewers of free products
○ Magazines: “advertorial” sometimes used, but many magazines regularly spotlight advertisers in editorial with no disclosure
We have an opportunity to create a single core standard online, with a framework and Living Ethics platform/process to improve it over time.
I think WOMMA’s standard for meaningful disclosure of material connections to endorsements should start with 3 core elements:
1. Disclosure Policy
2. Simple Disclosure
3. Compliance Tools
1. Disclosure Policy
The standard begins with a mandatory, simply-worded Disclosure Policy to educate visitors of what they can expect from the site they visit, similar to how Privacy Policies educate visitors of what they can expect for their personal data collected by the site they visit. A Disclosure Policy should be posted online, without legalese, that describes someone’s material connections and how they will disclose material connections (maybe with a link to WOMMA standard). A DP can even be helpful for handling “grey areas” such as what they consider a material connection: for example, blogging about an immediate family member’s company may be considered material, but not a second-cousin’s company. The FTC Guidelines leave plenty of “grey area” and DPs can help match interpretations/expectations between a publisher and a consumer of content. As the use of microformats increases, DPs also provide a standard, programmatic way to define/highlight disclosure by browsers, twitter apps, search engines etc. — imagine a browser plug-in that could automatically highlight a post in green if it mentions a company listed as a material connection in the Disclosure Policy. As for WOMMA, the existence of a Disclosure Policy posted online, with URL/link included on every page that may contain conflicted content would be required of content creators or marketers who want to be WOMMA members.
2. Simple Disclosure
○ Where space is available: “I have a material connection to [Company-X that competes with] Company-Y mentioned in this content” or something similar (whether that material connection is employment, agency, competitor, soft-money payment, hard-money payment, product, points, passes, trips, family/friend, partnership etc.)
○ Where minimal space is available (e.g. tweets): “#ad”, “#spon” or something similar (maybe WOMMA recommends a set of acceptable hashtags to communicate material connections)
Bloggers and marketers can always get more detailed for their specific situations, but as someone who has been involved in shaping more standards than I care to admit, simplicity and consistency of core requirements are keys to adoption and enforcement.
3. Compliance Tools
If WOMMA’s standard is supposed to drive best practices, then I believe required use of FTC Compliance tools need to be part of the standard. The FTC expects pre-campaign education, in-campaign disclosure and post-campaign monitoring. Trying to meet and document compliance via email and phone blogger outreach was NOT a best practice after December 1, 2009 (FTC Endorsement Guides). However, using FTC Compliance tools such as those provided by IZEA automatically enforce disclosure and document compliance after-the-fact. In fact, if disclosure doesn’t exist, payment is programmatically blocked, so you either have disclosed material connections or no material connections to disclose. Another compliance tool provider mentioned in an earlier comment, CMP.LY, can also help with a piece of the puzzle. Regardless of whose tools are used, WOMMA has the opportunity to standardize the expected use of FTC Compliance tools as a best practice for the industry — just as using SOX Compliance tools and HIPAA Compliance tools are best practices for other industries.
That brings me to my final observation about the proposal: it only mentions “marketers” and “bloggers” but there is another participant in this ecosystem, “tools providers”. That category includes CMP.LY and IZEA mentioned above, but also blogging tools (e.g. WordPress), status update tools (e.g. Twitter, Facebook), video hosting tools (e.g. YouTube) and advertising networks (e.g. FederatedMedia). I believe WOMMA’s standard should make it clear that any “tools provider” to the industry must allow “marketers” and “bloggers” to meet these standards. For example, a “tools provider” whose TOS doesn’t allow marketers to require disclosure wouldn’t meet WOMMA’s membership standard. However, tools providers may only provide pieces of the overall puzzle, so it must remain clear that the responsibility for disclosure always rests with the marketer and blogger. In other words, although they must allow it, it’s not WordPress’s responsibility to require marketers/bloggers using their tools (who may or may not be WOMMA members) to disclose in a specific manner. Such an approach is consistent with FTC Guidelines and internet service provider safe harbors for content created using their tools.
As others have mentioned before me, the goal of defining a WOMMA standard that exceeds FTC requirements is a good one. We’re capturing/defining best practices for our members, not writing law for the industry. I would make sure that goal is stated explicitly in the standard, so WOMMA “best practices” and FTC requirements are understood to be two distinct thresholds. I hope this feedback helps simplify the standard and maximize adoption for all.
Kate Tomlinson 1:40 pm on January 5, 2010 Permalink
I’m glad Peter Friedman raised the agency relationship issue, agree it needs to be addressed in the guidelines and like his recommended approach.
Another gray issue for me is the “above the fold” guideline. There are many in web design who don’t believe there is such a thing as a virtual fold. With an ever increasing number of screen sizes and resolutions, large and small, there is no common definition of the fold, and therefore defining and enforcing this guideline will be a challenge. In addition, if the disclosure relates to a specific photo, video, or blog post, there is no controlling where it will appear on the page. In most cases, you are specifying the disclosure should occur in the description or as part of the profile. I don’t think any additional guideline is needed.
Thanks for the opportunity to comment.
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Jon BUrg 5:21 pm on January 4, 2010 Permalink
Please include various forms of disclosure relevant and related to the medium. For example, tweets and blog titles should contain similar, short disclosures, as should disclosure statements made around passing references to sponsors.
Disclosure should not interrupt. The primary purpose of a disclosure should be to inform, or to notify that additional information is available elsewhere and to direct the reader to that source.
In order to make this short-form, non-interruptive disclosure a reality, we need to agree on an industry standard, widely known and accepted code or set of codes. I have proposed a set of codes on my blog here – http://jburg.typepad.com/future/2009/10/a-new-take-on-shortform-disclosure.html
I am extremely pleased to see that the industry is taking an active interest in self-regulation and standardization. Looking forward to contributing and participating.
Carin Galletta 4:33 pm on January 4, 2010 Permalink
In addition to the great suggestions already mentioned and already covered by WOMMA, our recommendations for best practices include:
For the digital influencer:
1. Post an ethics and disclosure policy in the main navigation bar on your site
2. List the companies that you are currently or will be mentioning in your posts, tweets, comments etc.
For the brand:
1. Educate Employees:
Whether or not employees are officially tasked with responding on social networks, they are using Twitter, Facebook etc and they do discuss their jobs. Give them the tools to keep everyone out of trouble. Provide a 30 minute quick “social media disclosure 101” both in person or video as well as an official written document in the employee handbook with clear direction indicating that disclosure is mandatory for all employees.
2. Signed Agreement:
Create a one page agreement between the digital influencer and the brand that is signed and returned before product / service is exchanged. We are putting this into place with our wine, restaurant and travel clients and it’s working out well. Many of the bloggers who we’ve provided product to are thankful for the additional information.
Agencies and other vendors:
1. Include a “we will provide complete transparency when writing, blogging, etc.” clause into each letter of agreement and / or contract.
2. Education for all employees
3. Include a disclosure policy in the agency handbook.
Thoughts on standardized coding:
1. We would like to see a standardized coding system that works across all platforms. We currently use a list of two letter codes with brackets to indicate our material relationships. That list is also outlined in our ethics policy in our main navigation on our site. Having to change the codes for each platform can be confusing and I can barely remember my passwords! The two letter code works well on Twitter where it can be a challenge to fit everything into 140 characters.
Obvious, Not Disruptive:
We all agree that disclosure is not only mandatory, but believe it’s additive. However, a primary discussion in the office is how to provide minimum but effective disclosure so that it does not feel forced or out of place.
Thanks WOMMA for heading up this important effort.
Ted Murphy, CEO of IZEA 3:59 pm on January 4, 2010 Permalink
Paul,
I would like to thank you for continuing the discussion around disclosure. It has been a long process but together we are all making headway.
I agree with the guiding principles as well as the responsibilities of marketers and bloggers. However, I believe the proposed guides also add unnecessary complexity and potential loop holes for WOMMA members. The principles WOMMA put forth are relatively simple:
- Disclosure must be clear and conspicuous
- Language must be unambiguous
- Considerations must be given to targeted consumer
- Disclosure must appear “above the fold”
Every disclosure statement provided above is related to either cash or product compensation – “I received (X product or service) from (company X) to review” – . However, the FTC guides clearly include other material connections such as points, coupons, trips, employment, etc. This raises a number of questions:
How are other material connections supposed to be disclosed?
What if there are multiple connections between the advertiser and blogger?
Are the statements in quotes above supposed to be used verbatim?
If so who is ensuring compliance and how?
As proposed cash compensation would be disclosed one way, free product compensation another, with no guidance for other variations of compensation. This doesn’t help to create a standard, instead it creates many permutations and rules to abide by depending on the creator and medium. Why don’t we move towards a Universal Disclosure standard that everyone can follow?
–UNIVERSAL DISCLOSURE–
Best Practices for any form of social media:
- Blog
- Social network
- Video sharing site
- Photo sharing site
- Review site
- Twitter
Disclosure Requirement:
- As part of the content
- “This (post/picture/video) sponsored by (company X)” or similar variation.
- “Above the fold” or in front of the content when possible
- Site wide disclosure policy when possible
Why not create one disclosure that everyone can use in a uniform manner no matter what the material connection is? This seems to be the simplest solution for advertisers, creators and readers.
We have already incorporated the concept of Universal Disclosure into SocialSpark and even taken it a step further with our Sandwich Disclosure. It is machine readable, audit-able and standard across our network.
http://izea.com/disclosure-socialspark-today/
Krishna De 5:20 pm on January 2, 2010 Permalink
I look forward to reading your final guidance and best practice tips.
A few areas you might want to include:
- podcasts i.e. audio not just online video
- guidance for social media sites outside the US (I am based in Ireland but have a significant amount of traffic to my site from the US)
- the comments left on a blog – what are the responsibilities of the blogger and of the person leaving the comments if they go on and promote an affiliate link for example in their comments.
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Pat Ratulangi 11:32 am on December 30, 2009 Permalink
Another area that hasn’t been discussed is managing the total transparency between corporations and their external stakeholders, made possible by the ‘employee as influencer’. Employees can blog/tweet/comment on their employers’ business, culture, products, etc. While sometimes it can backfire on the company – think Domino’s pizza – what about those who talk up a new product/service? In the financial industry employees sign non-disclosure agreements and contracts that crack down on information that could spur insider trading. To protect companies, a disclaimer by the content producer would say something like, “I am a full time employee of ABC company. These are my personal opinions, and don’t reflect those of the company.”
Great work on these!
John C. Havens, VP Social Media, Porter Novelli 11:06 am on December 30, 2009 Permalink
I think this is a great start and covers excellent ground.
One addition I would add is that I think a best practice is for both specific disclosure (or campaign/one-off focused) and general disclosure. I think a general disclosure statement is important because it lets a blogger/content producer provide an overall sense of why/how they work with marketers, etc as a way to build trust with their audience. A great example of that is how Walmart and Lifetime Mom Lori Falcon talks about disclosure on her blog here:
http://acowboyswife.com/disclosure-policy/
What I love about Lori’s disclosure is she is not apologetic about the fact that she works with marketers but is utterly specific about HOW she does and HOW she will disclose overall relationships or campaign specifics.
Point being, although letting a content producer explicitly state why they disclose the way they do isn’t a key FTC consideration, I believe it adds a strong layer of trust for consumers as it allows content producers to move beyond semantics of adhering to guidelines and speak truth to their trusted community.
Plus, as a recent “influencer” pointed out to me, when you overtly disclose that your content is being sponsored, you are more attractive to other brands as well – meaning, everyone quickly knows you are sponsor – worthy.
Thanks for your work on this and Happy New Year.
Kendra Bonnett 10:53 am on December 30, 2009 Permalink
We have always advocated transparency and full disclosure. I don’t look at this as an FTC issue (although everyone needs to know what the rules are) as a smart business issue. At Women’s Memoirs we deal with customers quickly, honestly and fairly, and I can’t tell you how often our customers comment on that fact.
I know we have more wording to put in place on our site, and that’s a high priority. Truth is, we’ve been more interested in our actions than words.
I’m going to take some time to read your ethics policy. We’re always looking for ways to make sure we do everything we can to have a great (two-way) customer experience. Then I may have more to comment on. Thanks for this.
Michael Wiley 10:46 am on December 30, 2009 Permalink
This is a good start. I think that there are some conspicuous gaps in disclosure though, particularly when dealing with astroturfing on review sites. We’ve all heard about companies and brands that stuff the ballot box on Amazon, iTunes, etc. I know that is is a significant challenge but I would love to see Womma take a proactive role in leading the industry toward a standard for validating reviewers.
On another front, when considering ongoing dialogue on a blog for example, when is full disclosure actually achieved? For instance, if a blogger includes disclosure in an original post and the post receives 75 comments, must he or she continue to disclose his/her affiliation with the product in subsequent interactions in the comments section?
Also, with regard to Twitter, I would like to see more clarity and a more creative solution. Using #paid or #spon does not seem to cover the full gamut of possibilities although it is a start. For example, if one attends a conference as a speaker and the registration fee is waived, does one need to include #spon on every tweet from the conference? Even if negatively tweeting about a boring session? Obviously there is considerable gray area that we need to provide guidance on.
Thanks again for posting the draft and inviting feedback.
Jan Schulz-Hofen, CEO, Magpie & Friends Ltd. 3:33 am on December 30, 2009 Permalink
Paul, thank you for taking the lead on this – I am most certain that this will benefit everyone involved in ethical word of mouth marketing.
We at Magpie have been fostering full disclosure in Twitter WOM since late in 2008. Right now, we have multiple disclosure options available, including #spon, #spnsrd, etc. We require the twitterers to pick one. I would be happy to limit the number of choices to #spon and #paid to make things easier and more standardized.
I am a bit confused about the “Create link to Disclosures and Relationships section on profile” part, though. On Twitter, you can place *one* particular link on your profile and provide a 160 character text-only description. That’s it. Obviously, most people like to use the 160 chars to give a short bio and the link to reference their homepage or blog. I think, it should suffice to create a “Disclosures and Relationships” section on the linked site. Alternatively, it is our current practice to issue a disclosing tweet whenever a twitterer cashes out their earnings. I’ve written a blog post about this:
http://be-a-magpie.com/blog/2009/10/22/magpie-and-the-new-ftc-endorsement-guidelines/
What does everyone think? Would this be acceptable or should we really require twitterers to use the one link they have on their twitter profile for the “Disclosures and Relationships” section?
Daniel Honigman 9:51 am on December 3, 2009 Permalink
One option for disclosure in Tweets that I’ve seen is http://cmp.ly. For people who want to be very clear about their relationship, and not link a full disclosure policy right on their Twitter profiles — that’s good real estate, you know — I think it’s a good option.
Peter Friedman, Chairman & CEO, LiveWorld 11:43 pm on November 30, 2009 Permalink
One area of confusion that needs to be clarified relates to when a brand has hired a vendor to moderate a service or otherwise provide content to the service acting on behalf of the brand and represented as being the brand and/or being an agent of the brand. In this scenario the ethics guidelines should consider the vendor as being an agent of the brand and as long as the person/content is being represented as being from the brand, there is no need for additional disclosure. That is, the brand should disclose that such moderators are representatives of the brand. However it is not necessary to disclose or distinguish that the moderator is an employee of the vendor vs an employee of the brand. Because in this case the vendor is already being presented as being from the brand — not as being some kind of 3rd party endorser. Of course if the brand wishes to disclose the vendor personnel are a contracted agent and not an employee of the brand, that’s okay too. But it is the brand’s decision.
A comparable anoaogy would be when a PR agency writes a press release and publishes it on news wires on behalf of the brand, there is no need to disclose or distinguish that the agency is a vendor, not an employee. Same for an ad agency creating a TV ad. In all these cases, the representation to the consuming public is that the vendor and its work are coming from the brand. Employee vs. paid vendor status is not relevant to disclose. I raise this subject as needing to be explicitly called out, because we’ve already seen people confused over it.
Daniel Honigman 9:43 am on November 30, 2009 Permalink
I think it should be made clear that WOMMA believes in transparency and disclosure, despite the FTC rules. While the FTC has taken a “or else” attitude with regard to SM transparency (but only because it HAS to, it seems), WOMMA is sharing best practices that go beyond what the rules dictate because, at the end of the day, transparency will increase the relevance — and reach — of blogs and blog-like Web sites