Disclosure: A How-To Guide

Since the FTC was pretty vague in its new(ish) regulations, brands and bloggers alike were pretty confused about what exactly they’d have to do to stay on the right side of the law. Luckily, WOMMA has got our backs, and they’ve developed a Social Media Marketing Disclosure Guide in an effort to standardize the disclosing process. They outline exactly what a blogger must do to disclose their material connections, whether it’s on a blog, forum, social network, video- and photo-sharing Web site or podcast.

We’ve previously written about how disclosure can be tricky when posting in status updates where the number of characters is limited, but WOMMA suggests using hashtags such as #spon (sponsored), #paid or #samp (sample). I’ve also seen some people use the hashtag #ad for a paid tweet. It should be interesting to see how these catch on, especially in comparison to a tool like CMP.ly. Now WOMMA just needs to develop an industry standard for how public relations professionals should disclose posts or tweets about clients!

—Alyssa