One of the hottest topics/stories in the blogosphere yesterday was about the new guidelines implemented by the FTC or Federal Trade Commission regarding blogger and celebrity endorsements, testimonials and disclosures. The FTC Guides were last updated back in 1980 and this is the first time the Guides were amended in 29 years.

Here’s an excerpt from the updated FTC Final Guides Governing Endorsements, Testimonials:

Under the revised Guides, advertisements that feature a consumer and convey his or her experience with a product or service as typical when that is not the case will be required to clearly disclose the results that consumers can generally expect. In contrast to the 1980 version of the Guides – which allowed advertisers to describe unusual results in a testimonial as long as they included a disclaimer such as “results not typical” – the revised Guides no longer contain this safe harbor.

The revised Guides also add new examples to illustrate the long standing principle that “material connections” (sometimes payments or free products) between advertisers and endorsers – connections that consumers would not expect – must be disclosed. These examples address what constitutes an endorsement when the message is conveyed by bloggers or other “word-of-mouth” marketers. The revised Guides specify that while decisions will be reached on a case-by-case basis, the post of a blogger who receives cash or in-kind payment to review a product is considered an endorsement. Thus, bloggers who make an endorsement must disclose the material connections they share with the seller of the product or service. Likewise, if a company refers in an advertisement to the findings of a research organization that conducted research sponsored by the company, the advertisement must disclose the connection between the advertiser and the research organization. And a paid endorsement – like any other advertisement – is deceptive if it makes false or misleading claims.

Celebrity endorsers also are addressed in the revised Guides. While the 1980 Guides did not explicitly state that endorsers as well as advertisers could be liable under the FTC Act for statements they make in an endorsement, the revised Guides reflect Commission case law and clearly state that both advertisers and endorsers may be liable for false or unsubstantiated claims made in an endorsement – or for failure to disclose material connections between the advertiser and endorsers. The revised Guides also make it clear that celebrities have a duty to disclose their relationships with advertisers when making endorsements outside the context of traditional ads, such as on talk shows or in social media.

Read full article here.

So what it basically says is that bloggers or celebrities who do endorsements must properly or fully disclose any payments (cash or in kind) they’ve received from companies or entities in exchange for those endorsements/reviews. Failure to do so could cost the guilty party a penalty of $11,000 per violation. It also means that aside from pay-per-post reviews, any reviews, endorsements or testimonials that involve freebies, are now required to be disclosed. The only thing that’s unclear with these new set of guidelines is where should the blogger post or display the disclosure? Should it be in each individual post or in a disclosure page? Also, should the blogger disclose what compensation they received?

I haven’t done paid reviews in a long time but as a blogger whose done paid reviews/endorsements in the past, I don’t mind having this new guidelines. I believe in creating and developing a trustworthy and honest relationship with my blog readers and visitors. I make sure that I point out that a certain post is a paid review and I also have a Disclosure Policy here on my blog. In the event that I receive compensation for reviews and endorsements, I make it a point that I try out the product/service first and that I publish my honest and personal opinion about the product.

I’m not an expert on legal issues but from what I understand, this new guidelines would only affect bloggers in the US, right? The FTC will surely have a hard time policing the millions of blogs in the Internet. Maybe they’ll start with the A-list bloggers and work their way down to other bloggers. Btw, from what I’ve read in the various articles and from the Guides itself, this new set of guidelines also cover Twitter, Facebook (including Facebook Fan Pages) and other forms of social media.

How about you guys? What do you think about the FTC’s new guidelines regarding blogger and celebrity endorsements, reviews, testimonials and disclosures? For those of you who do paid reviews and receive compensation for product reviews and endorsements, do you like this new guidelines set by the FTC? For the consumers, what type of disclosure do you expect from bloggers who endorse products and services? Do you want it on individual posts or just a one page blog disclosure policy? Please share your thoughts.

Blogging

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Technology

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• IBM, Google, and colleges talk cloud projects

Gadgets

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• Kempler & Strauss W: The World’s “Smallest” and Most Affordable Watch Phone
• Netgear intros 802.11n Wi-Fi router with Linux

Pinoy Blogs

• Zune HD in the flesh, unboxed
• Filipinos Lead the World in Use of Cellphone Features
• Expanding WordPress Mu Functionality with Premium Plugins
• Create Your Bucket List Now

JaypeeOnline Weekly Recap

• Sorry For The Inconvenience
• WP Theme Review: Monkeypr
• Ultra-Thin Dell Latitude Z Laptop
• Yahoo! Meme
• Help Victims of Typhoon Ondoy
• Filipino Bloggers Promote Ovi by Nokia

If you have any questions, comments, suggestions or want your article or find an interesting story that you want to be featured in the next Weekend Roundup, feel free to leave a comment or send me a message via the contact page.

Thank you for your time and hope you guys are having a great week!

What is Sponsored Tweets?

Sponsored Tweets is a Twitter advertising service that matches tweeters with advertisers. It allows marketers to hire both celebrity and long tail twitter users based on categories, keywords and other data. Twitter users tweet out messages on behalf of the advertiser in a transparent and honest fashion. SponsoredTweets.com is a self-service platform.

Homepage

What makes Sponsored Tweets different from TwitThis and Magpie?

Compared to other Twitter advertising services that were launched before it, Sponsored Tweets is not only well funded but it also learned from the mistakes and weaknesses of its competitors by adapting transparency, ethics and employing the help/services of celebrity Twitter users.

To get a closer view of how it works, I’ve signed up with Sponsored Tweets and this is how the control panel looks like:

As a user, you can set the price/amount you charge per tweet or click, select the ad type, your tweet category (business, entertainment, technology), specify content type (everyone, mature, adults only), define keywords and set up the notification settings. The user can accept or reject offers or opportunities from advertisers. If the user decides to accept a certain offer, the user’s account will be credited within 24 hours after the tweet was sent. Once the account accumulates a minimum of $50, the user can then withdraw the money.

Transparency, Ethics, Disclosure

Disclosure is 100% mandatory. Sponsored Tweets require all advertisers and tweeters to include a disclosure phrase to their tweets. Sponsored Tweets goes an extra step to ensure 100% disclosure by using an automated disclosure engine. Below is a video on how the automated disclosure engine works:

Celebrity Tweeters

One of Sponsored Tweets’ strategies is to use celebrity tweeters to endorse and use the product. Such celebrities include Kim Kardashian, Playboy Playmates Holly Madison & Kendra Wilkinson, comedian Carrot Top, chef Bethenny Frankel and web celebrities like Chris Pirillo, Neil Patel, Jeremy “Shoemoney” Shoemaker and John Chow just to name a few.

My Take:
If you ask me, Sponsored Tweets and the likes only work for Tweeters who have a large following and have a certain level of authority on a certain niche. Even if you have a large following and even if you’re a celebrity, not all of your followers will want to click on a link especially if they know that it’s a sponsored tweet.

Although earning extra income would be a nice idea, I’ve stayed away from these type of services from the first time they were introduced. I’ve already deactivated my account on Sponsored Tweets. Like I said earlier, I only signed up for an account just to have a closer look on the system and I have no plans of reactivating it. I’m not saying that this is bad and that you shouldn’t use it or sign up with them. Its just a personal preference of mine and I want it to stay that way.

How about you guys? What do you think of Sponsored Tweets? Would you sell sponsored tweets on your Twitter account? Would you click on a sponsored tweet link? Please share your thoughts.