Something I have been passionate about for a very long time, is the need for bloggers to fully disclose if they are getting paid in some way, to write about a company / product / service. Well, yesterday, The United States Federal Trade Commission announced that it would fine bloggers up to $11,000 if they post positive reviews or endorsements, for which they are rewarded in any way, without letting their readers know.
I have three blogs and operate a full disclosure policy on all of them. Like all well-read bloggers, I get offerers pretty-much every day from people, who want to pay me (either money or freebies), if I will ‘just’ write about them, their business or their service in glowing terms. My tech news blog often gets several such offers in one day.
Full disclosure
When a blogger is honest enough to declare any gifts they receive, it encourages the reader to trust their content. For example, I found out yesterday that respected blogger (and all round nice guy) Chris Brogan, receives his hosting for free from a well-known hosting provider. The reason I now know, is that Chris openly disclosed this gift in a post he wrote, about the company who give him his free hosting.
That kind of honest declaration, allows readers to place the post in context, of how they feel, knowing about the relationship the blogger has with the company.
The trust of your readers is everything
The importance of trust when developing a successful relationship with anyone, can not be overstated. This is equally true of the relationship between a blogger or content provider and their readers. After all, who wants to read content that you can’t trust?
If you have a commercial blog or website and you want people to trust you and your business, being fully open is essential.
By the way, here’s an example of how I recently dealt with disclosure on my new Ideas Blog.
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I agree that transparency is a good thing. I’m just not so sure that the FTC should be regulating this.
I think something needs to be done, because consumers are getting ripped off by people writing fake pay-per-post reviews and such – which is totally wrong.
As a UK based blogger, I would like to know who is covered by the rulings.
another law that is not really fair, in order to follow it you would at least have to know it exist and well the average blogger is not going to have a clue this law exist.
Thanks for the comment.
However, as they say, ignorance of the law is no defence.
Couldn’t agree more Jim. Conditional information that can affect our opinions should be aired out in the open. Business relationships and potential revenues that are made transparent help to complete readers image of our perspective.
Louis Gray had a great point that our blogs could have little certificate boxes somewhere out of the way with a list of our business connections, and financial deals (not a disclaimer or license agreement but the same sort of openly available info).
Any chance of getting DISQUS here Jim, it makes for nice threaded comments and a shared repository for our comments (plus it feeds into my friendfeed and potentially other aggregators for greater blog visibility).
Mark,
Regarding Louis Gray – he’s got a great point there. A VERY smart cookie!
Regarding Disqus, I REALLY don’t like the idea of being tied to a platform.
If you use Diqus, you have to keep using it – or your comments will be fragmented if you remove it.
That’s because you have comments on your blog (which you keep) that answer points made on social media platforms that Disqus pulls in (which you lose.) End result, if you leave Disqus, you have comments on your blog, where people are replying to comments that are no longer there!
HOWEVER:
I will soon be switching this blog over to Headway, which allows threaded comments.
1) Thanks for the comments, Mark.
2) Disqus is great. Disqus and JS-Kit both have solid commenting platforms, and they are smart enough to build tools that ease transitions, should they ever occur. I have used Disqus for a few years and can track all activity on my blog and on my personal ID around the Web.
Hello Louis,
Welcome to the blog and thanks or the comment.