You’re not the only one doing the brand monitoring these days. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), is taking a closer, pointed look at social media, monitoring various platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and blogs for any type of violation of the new rules. The key to complying with FTC’s new rules is transparency, meaning avoiding ‘pretending’ to be an unbiased consumer writing informational or evaluative messages about products or services on social media platforms while actually being compensated to do so. In short, if you’re getting paid to say that Brand X is a great product and worked wonders in your life, you must disclose the fact that you are getting paid to say so.

Seems simple enough, right? Surprisingly enough, a lot of well-known brands have employed less-than-transparent tactics, using stealth and masquerading to get their brand messages across to the audience. Here is an excerpt from the related article in Mashable:

“Among the practices long frowned upon in the social media sphere that are now on the FTC’s radar are: “Flogging,” or creating supposedly-objective blogs that serve only to promote a product or service; “astroturfing,” where advertisers posing as ordinary consumers share raving, but often misleading, reviews; and paying social media users to knowingly post inaccurate information about a product or service.”

Here is a summary of Mashable’s recommendations of how to comply with the new FTC enforcement in social media:

• Educate your social media ambassadors of what they need to know and use to comply with the new FTC enforcement. Here is the related news article on FTC.gov.
• The same way your monitor your brand, monitor what your social media ambassadors say in social media. If you are doing your social media work yourself monitor what you say!
• Step into social media and do the work if necessary. If you see anything that could be on the unsafe side with regards to FTC compliance, there is time to correct the mistake and prevent damage.

If the new FTC enforcement on social media marketing is still unclear to you, I urge you to do more research. Google “FTC social media rules” or “FTC social media enforcement.” As always, knowledge is power! This will help you in the long run on your social media initiatives for your small business.