What Influencers Need To Know About The New FTC Disclosure Guide

Adding a #ad or paid partnership disclosure to a post may seem annoying, but believe us: including the proper disclosures improves the trust of your audience, and keeps the world of influencer marketing fair and transparent. One thing we hear from influencers is that they aren’t quite sure how to be FTC-compliant, so the FTC (aka the Federal Trade Commission) created a brand new handbook for social media influencers.

You can check out the whole guide here, but we are sharing the most important takeaways below:

When To Disclose A Partnership

A lot of influencers think that they only have to disclose a partnership when there is a monetary trade involved, but the truth is, you should even be disclosing gifted product. If you have any “financial, employment, personal, or family relationship with a brand” you should make that clear to your audience.

Make Your Disclosures Easy To Read

Any disclosures should be noticeable and easy to find. An #ad hashtag should be within the caption, not hidden in a comment amongst other hashtags. When possible, use the “Paid Partnership” tool on Instagram. If sharing a video, disclose the relationship in both text and audio.

Essentially, anyone looking at your content should be able to quickly discern any brand relationship.

Know What Terms To Use

In general, you should disclose partnerships in simple language. For gifted product, saying “Thank you to [BRAND] for the free product” can suffice. Terms including “Ad”, “Advertisement”, and “Sponsored” are also acceptable.

However, you should steer clear of shorthand or insider terms like “Spon”, “Sp”, or “Collab”, since these aren’t immediately clear as disclosures.

When in doubt, keep it simple and in plain sight.

Check out the full handbook here. What questions do you have about FTC disclosures?