In October of 2009 the FTC revised its “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising” for the first time since 1980. The guides are designed to provide advertisers with direction “on how to keep their endorsement and testimonial ads in line with the FTC Act.”
As bloggers, this was a very important development that affects anyone who plans on discussing a product or service on their blog. Interestingly, and coincidentally, I dealt with this for the first time over at one of my other blogs earlier this morning.
I’m going to quickly take you through the situation I faced and then provide a few tips and one terrific resource so that you can ensure your compliance with the FTC’s guidelines without reinventing the wheel.
As you know, I am the Managing Editor of Midwest Sports Fans. One of our authors, Kimberly Westphall, recently put together a terrific piece of content for her Blogging Fitness series that included a video diary of her first ever experience at Jay Johnson’s Boot Camp Fitness class.
In addition the video, Kimberly wrote about the experience and also got the people at Boot Camp Fitness to agree to a giveaway for MSF readers. All in all, it was one of the most in-depth and well-researched articles that I’ve had the privilege of posting on the site.
Right before I was ready to hit the “Publish” button, I realized that I had not yet asked Kimberly a few key questions:
- Did she have to pay for the class or did they allow her to participate for free because she was writing an article?
- Did she receive anything else of material value?
Having read all of Kimberly’s articles and doing a couple of podcasts with her, I can unequivocally state that I know she was not influenced to pursue the story about Boot Camp Fitness for any reason other than her passion for fitness and her general curiosity for trying new workout programs. However, I also knew that because of the FTC’s more stringent regulations, the onus was on me as the editor to find out for sure.
I could not get ahold of Kimberly before the article was ready to be posted and she hadn’t mentioned receiving anything from them. I wanted to get it up early this morning so I hit “Publish” and included the following note at the end of the article:
[Editor's note: The idea to write this article came from Kimberly herself in her endless quest to provide readers here at MSF with valuable health and fitness information. She did not receive anything of material value from Jay Johnson's Boot Camp Fitness in exchange for her work and opinions provided here.]
About an hour later, Kimberly emailed to inform that she had, in fact, received something of material value for writing the article: free admission (one time) to the class and a free workout DVD. It’s possible that she told me about this before and I forgot, and it did not change my opinion of her work one iota, but what was most important was that I disclose this fact as quickly as possible on the post.
I immediately edited the post to say the following:
[Editor's note (updated): Originally when I published this post, I said that Kimberly received no compensation nor incentives for writing/posting it. That is not entirely true. The idea to write this article came from Kimberly herself in her endless quest to provide readers here at MSF with valuable health and fitness information, but she did receive free entry in the class that you see featured in the video above, as well as a free Jay Johnson Boot Camp Fitness workout DVD after the fact.]
Not only did this make the article compliant with the FTC’s disclosure rules, but it is also the right thing to do for MSF’s readers. They should know whether or not Kimberly received anything of material value. Anyone who has read her work will be able to feel the palpably honest excitement she has for the topic and know that her work is genuine, but that is up to the readers to discern with all of the information available to them.
Other than the slight hassle it will cause us all, I doubt that many forward-thinking bloggers disagree with the FTC deciding to focus on this area. As Twitter, blogs, and other social media outlets gain more and more traction, the voices that users are listening to are gaining more and more influence. It is only fair for a reader to know when a celebrity, blogger, or even just an ordinary Joe has been compensated to give their opinion.
In fact, I contend that requiring more disclosure in the fashion that the FTC has is good for the long-term health of blogs. It might be a little bit more of a pain in the rear for those of us creating the content, but it would be a much bigger pain in the rear to have to recreate an audience because your readers vacated your site. That is exactly what happens when readers cannot trust your opinions, or being to consistently question the motivation behind them.
Disclosure is good. I don’t really think it’s debatable, but you’re more than welcome to disagree in the comment section.
With that said, the next question that I know you all are thinking – or at least that I assume you are thinking because it was on my mind immediately after altering Kimberly’s post – is how do I make compliance with the FTC’s revised guidelines easy, seamless, and templated?
Well my friends, you are in luck thanks to a recent blogging goldmine that I discovered. (Full disclosure: I didn’t really discover it. Hannah emailed a link from the site to all of us in the office last week, so the credit goes to her.)
The site is Michael Hyatt’s blog, and I will let you learn more about Mr. Hyatt from his About page. I am actually in the process right now of preparing another post for H2B that was inspired by a post Mr. Hyatt wrote about how to manage email, but I’ll leave you on pins and needles waiting for that one for at least a few more days. (FYI, that is his blog’s logo there to the right.)
Today I am going to focus on Mr. Hyatt’s blog post entitled “Five Ways to Comply with the New FTC Guidelines for Bloggers“. In it, he presents a quick overview of the FTC’s new guidelines, as well as a few resources that are helpful for ensuring your compliance with the guidelines.
Most helpfully, Mr. Hyatt has made the copy available that he is using for his five disclosure templates:
- No Material Connection
- Affiliate Links
- Review or Sample
- Sponsored Post
- Employee / Shareholder Relationship
Below is an example of one of Mr. Hyatt’s disclosures:
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received one or more of the products or services mentioned above for free in the hope that I would mention it on my blog. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”
If you view the aforementioned fitness post by Kimberly at MSF, you will see that I have added the last sentence onto the disclosure I wrote earlier today.
I encourage you to visit Mr. Hyatt’s post to view the other examples – which he explicitly states that you and I and everyone else are free to use on our blogs – and then immediately subscribe to his feed. There are regular nuggets of blogging gold that can help even the most experienced of us.
Needless the say, updating my blogs with the templates and post footer plugin suggested by Michael Hyatt will be going near the top of my immediate action list for the sites I manage. Though you my find your own way to adhere with the FTC’s guidelines, I encourage you to find the most automated/templated method possible.
Providing your readers with full disclosure of any material connections that you may have to people, products, or services that you discuss on your blog is a good thing. Make sure you create the easiest system possible to ensure that doing so is not a hassle.
How-to-Blog.tv Disclosure of Material Connection: How-to-Blog.tv and its authors have not received any material compensation for writing this post. As mentioned in the article, one of the authors on Jerod‘s other blog received material compensation for a post written at Midwest Sports Fans, but we have no material connection here to the brands, products, or services that have been mentioned, nor was exposure on any sites other than Midwest Sports Fans expected for the material compensation received by Kimberly Westphall, who is not affiliated with How-toBlog.tv. We are disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”
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