Twitter Hashtags For Ethical Marketers
By Anna Johnson on March 1st, 2010The Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) reckons marketers on Twitter should use specific hashtags when posting promotional tweets on Twitter.
These are:
- #spon (for sponsored tweets);
- #paid (for tweets containing advertisements); and
- #samp (for tweets in return for getting a product sample)
WOMMA has published its recommendations in its newly released ‘Social Media Marketing Disclosure Guide’, a response to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.
WOMMA’s guide also recommends specific wording for bloggers. If you write a personal or editorial blog and are paid (in money or in kind) to review a product, WOMMA suggests you disclose this by using such wording as the following:
- I received [$Cash/Product] from [Company] to review [Product]; or
- I was paid by [Company] to review [Product]; or
- [Company] sent me [Product/Gift] to review [Product].
For product review blogs, WOMMA also recommends having a ‘Disclosure and Relationships’ statement where you fully disclose how you work with companies in accepting and reviewing products, and listing any conflicts that may affect the credibility of your reviews. In turn, WOMMA says that any profile page you have on a social network where you might be promoting a product or service should also link to this disclosure statement.
WOMMA recommends similar disclosures if you participate in online forums, and/or video and photo sharing websites.
What do you think? Is WOMMA going overboard with its recommendations? How many Internet marketers are really going to do all this?
I like the idea of the Twitter hashtags for ‘non-marketers’ who are paid to say nice things about various products and services (in other words, where it’s not obvious that you are a marketer). I also reckon having a disclosure statement on your blog may be a good idea if it’s not already obvious when you promote a product or service in return for a reward of some kind.
But is emphasizing the fact that you’re promoting a product or service always necessary? Let’s face it, the very people these (and the FTC Guides) are aimed at – the dodgy marketers / spammers – are the people and companies that are most UNLIKELY to adopt these practices.
Meanwhile, those Internet marketers trying to ‘do the right thing’ risk turning their audiences away by constantly being in their readers’ faces about the fact that they’re… Internet MARKETERS.
Go here for WOMMA’s full set of recommendations.
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- Twitter To Charge Internet Marketers?
- Twitter: How Five B2B Companies Use Twitter For Sales and Leads
