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There is an implied need that business owners and marketers need to handle their own social media engagement. By doing so, they always have a finger to the pulse of their industries, along with discussions, comments, concerns, and insights customers could not find easily.
This is a good idea, but it is also a legal requirement.
Recent changes to US law as enacted by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) makes it clear that bloggers and marketers must “clearly and conspicuously” explain issues of payment or endorsement.For more information, you can search on any search engine on the .com disclosures and what it means to bloggers and also some couple of provisions that deserves attention.
With the .com disclosure, it is explicitly stated that anyone that has a connection to a certain product or service that they are endorsing must disclose this fact. This is due to a relatively high number of influential people who seem to market products or products stealthily on a facade of discussion,contests and other forms of social interaction. When marketing to pretend as you are not is just unethical, it is unlikely to be legal as well.
The language within the guidelines has certainly left some grey areas when it comes to regular, everyday engagement. Having a third party marketing team that compose, broadcast or schedule content to be posted on social media on a business’ behalf certainly fits the first argument. If that is the case, then those relationships should be fully disclosed under FTC law.
The bottom line is that, governments around the work are listening to their citizens, and those citizens want to know who they are interacting with, and why, at any given time. Users who interact with a business should not second guess about whom they are interacting with or even wonder what the true intentions and motivations might be.
Time and again, people are pushing for improved transparency. People understand that business leaders are busy people and obviously know that messaging (posting, emails for example) are handled by other people such as copywriters, consultants and some in-house staff.
By being completely clear about who you are is simply the best practice. Not only does engaging with your followers yourself will take time but this is a great way to build trust – a very important factor in getting marketing messages out. Connections would just want to hear directly from business owners,even if the message sounds like a canned sales pitch.
Many marketers have been ignoring this law of requiring them to disclose business relationships and compensation, mainly because it suits their interests and will probably continue to ignore these laws.
For the rest of us, a more transparent web is actually a big advantage. A transparent web shows truth of social engagement and this is bound to win out over time.
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