February 9, 2010 -- Chicago— The Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) today released disclosure guidelines for its member companies participating in social media marketing. Developed with extensive industry input, the guidelines are designed to provide marketers with clear and practical direction when engaging social media participants (“bloggers”) in brand marketing initiatives.
While WOMMA has had a long-standing Code of Ethics, the recently-released FTC Guidelines on Endorsements and Testimonials – designed to promote absolute transparency and keep consumers informed -- spurred both marketers and bloggers to seek greater clarity and best practices for social media disclosure.
While the number of social media sites is continually increasing, many brands and agencies are implementing dynamic word-of-mouth marketing and social media programs online.
Nearly every brand is looking to forge a tighter connection with its customers and key stakeholders through social media, notes Paul Rand, President of WOMMA and President/CEO of the Zócalo Group. “Clear and prominent disclosure helps protect both consumers and marketers.”
The WOMMA guidelines provide specific best practices on how bloggers, marketers and other who use partipate in social media can be transparent and non-intrusive—all with the intent of developing a closer with brands and organizations that is built on trust.
These WOMMA guidelines apply to personal, editorial and product review blogs, online discussion comments, Twitter and other short-form microblogging services, status updates on social networking sites, as well as video, podcasts and other photo sharing websites.
For personal and editorial blogs, the guidelines recommend the blogger use language such as:
“I received (product or sample) from (company name), or (company name) sent me (product or sample). For platforms such as Twitter, the new WOMMA guidelines recommend marketers employ the following hashtags:
#spon (sponsored),
#paid (paid) and
#samp (sample).
In addition to the established requirements for Disclosure Best Practices, WOMMA’s recommendations for maintaining full FTC compliance include creating and prominently posting a Disclosure and Relationships Statement section. The specific location and verbiage of this statement is intended to coincide with the applicable social media platform being used.
“While the FTC Guidelines are relatively straightforward, marketers and bloggers still had plenty of questions on exactly what they should be communicating or sharing," said Tony DiResta, WOMMA General Counsel and Partner at Manatt. “Now those questions are answered.”
For additional information on the FTC’s Best Practice Disclosure Requirements and WOMMA’s full compliance recommendations, visit: http://womma.org/ethics/disclosure.
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About WOMMA
WOMMA, http://WOMMA.org, is the leading trade association in the marketing and advertising industries that focuses on word of mouth, consumer-generated and social media platforms -- or marketing techniques that include buzz, viral, community, and influencer marketing, as well as brand blogging. The organization is committed to developing and maintaining appropriate ethical standards for marketers and advertisers engaging in such marketing practices, identifying meaningful measurement standards for such marketing practices, and defining “best practices” for the industry.
Founded in 2005, WOMMA currently has approximately 300 members. They include marketers and brands that use word-of-mouth marketing to reinforce their core customers and to reach out to new consumers, agencies that deliver word-of-mouth services and technologies, researchers that track the word-of-mouth experience and offline and online practitioners.
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