The Work at Home Woman’s Week In Review – New FTC Blogging Guidelines
Tags: Advertising, Blog, Bloggers, Blogging, FTC, The Work at Home Woman
Posted in Blogging, Week In Review 
3 Comments »
By Holly Reisem Hanna
Generally on Fridays I feature a Lovable Links post, where I highlight various websites and blogs of interest. While I think this is useful, I want to start a new segment where I share my latest business adventures, frustrations, triumphs and news for the week. Don’t worry Lovable Links isn’t going away; there will just be fewer of them.
Here it is The Work at Home Woman’s Week in Review:
On October 5, 2009 the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) published its new guidelines for bloggers. In a nutshell, the guidelines require bloggers to fully disclosure any and all compensation received for reviews, whether it’s a free book, product, fancy lunch, paid trip or cash. The guidelines have quite a bit of gray area, because they don’t specifically tell bloggers how they should word the disclosure, but anyone accepting cash, freebies or swag for reviews needs to make it known to their readers.
What does this mean for advertisers: Since the FTC states that it will be putting the majority of the responsibility on the advertiser, those of you who use bloggers to promote your products, books or services, will now need to inform bloggers that you work with, that they need to fully disclose the nature of the relationship
What does this mean for bloggers: It will now be more important than ever to include a disclosure policy on your blog, as well as disclosing the relationship on the specified post. Not only do these guidelines include your blog, but it also includes social networking sites – all forms of consumer generated media. So if you are using Twitter to send out paid tweets, you will need to distinguish that they are indeed sponsored, generally by using the hashtag #spon. Non- compliers will suffer hefty fines!
My Two Cents: I’m all about protecting the consumer, because God knows that there are way too many scam blogs out there, especially in the work at home niche. What I don’t like about this policy is that it doesn’t hold newspaper, magazine and even television journalists to the same standards.
The new guidelines do encompass celebrity endorsements, however I don’t quite see celebrity endorsements playing out the same way. I mean really, are we now going to see Paris Hilton wearing a t-shirt that says, “I got this gorgeous Prada handbag for free”? Or will we see Lance Armstrong’s new promotion for Michelob Ultra with a sponsorship tag in the corner saying, “I get paid over six figures to endorse Michelob”, I highly doubt it. I just think that all areas of advertising, promotion and journalism need to be held to the same standards.
Related Articles:
The Full 81 Page FTC Blogging Guidelines
Why the FTC’s truth in blogging guidelines are truly terrible
Morning Side Moms Opinion About the New FTC Blogging Regulations
The FTC and You: Blogging and Advertising
FTC’s New Blogging Regulations More Than Fair
My Business Triumph for the Week:
Yesterday, I got to interview Tory Johnson, CEO of Women for Hire and Good Morning America’s Workplace Contributor (I know, how cool is that)!?! A while back I wrote on post titled, 10 Fabulous Facebook Fan Pages for Work at Home Women and low and behold Tory Johnson left a comment on my blog, thanking me for making Women for Hire number one. I was truly blown away that she would take the time to make a comment on my blog, so I decided to send her an email thanking her for the comment. One thing lead to another and woozers, she agreed to a telephone interview. I’m happy to say that the interview went great, she truly is an amazing woman! The interview will be posted November 9, 2009, the week of the Texas Conference for Women, where she will be speaking and where I will be in attendance.
How has your week been? What do you think about the new FTC blogging guidelines? Are they fair, unfair? Drop me a note and let me know what you think.
3 Responses to “The Work at Home Woman’s Week In Review – New FTC Blogging Guidelines”
Leave a Reply
October 9th, 2009 at 4:44 pm
Great blog layout Holly :)
Disclosure doesn’t affect my blog but I do find it curious that the FTC would go this route. Like you said, when it comes to celebs how will they be held to the same standards?
.-= Ryan´s last blog ..RBs Keys: Hurry, Attachment Quotes =-.
October 12th, 2009 at 5:19 pm
hi,
very great to read this.thanks for5 the links.these are very helpful.i will bookmark your blog.
.-= Virtual Family´s last blog ..Find your eternal love =-.
October 27th, 2009 at 8:16 am
Congratulations on interviewing Tory Johnson. I have seen she has two books out on working at home and she also has a website that is ranking number 3 in Google for “work at home.” I guess she is finding there is money in the niche. I am glad to see that because she obviously is looking for ideas that are not scams.
As far as the new advertising rule, it does not affect me, so I don’t have much of an opinion, other than that I agree that all people and companies should be put on the same standards. I am not sure why this type of rule would be important to the FTC, does anyone have input on this?