How to Do Influencer Marketing at Scale — and Make the FTC Happy
Fade in: A marketer tosses and turns in the night, having finally fallen asleep after counting pages of compliance guidelines instead of sheep. Suddenly, she snaps awake from a sweaty nightmare about finding an FTC warning letter in her inbox…
Sounds a little too real? That’s because the FTC isn’t playing around. Built to protect consumers from shady advertising, the FTC considers influencer marketing a form of advertising even when it doesn’t involve any payment, like when brands gift free products to influencers in exchange for reviews.
The US agency already sanctioned fashion brand Lord & Taylor in 2016 for failing to disclose partnered content with influencers on over 50 posts. They also sent 90 warning letters in 2017 to brands and influencers reminding them to clearly disclose their partnerships.
Here’s the rub: Disclosure is easy to monitor if you’re working with 5–10 influencers. You can just manually check their posts to make sure they fit the FTC’s guidelines and won’t put your brand at risk. The question is, what happens when you want to do influencer marketing at scale and work with hundreds of influencers at a time? How do you check all of those posts before they go live?
Well, that’s more of a challenge. But the good news is that there is a solution.
The automated compliance monitoring tool you need
At Octoly, some clients create several hundred influencer reviews every month through our platform. That’s part of the beauty of the system. Brands can tap into a community of over 12,000 influencers to send them free products in exchange for genuine and authentic reviews.
So with the FTC cracking down on disclosure, we knew we couldn’t leave these brands and influencers hanging. That’s why the Octoly tech team recently launched our own automated Compliance monitoring tool. This powerful tool takes the headache out of compliance by instantly checking if influencer posts on Instagram and YouTube match up with FTC guidelines.
A green sign means the post appears compliant with the FTC and Octoly’s transparency rules. A red sign means the tool considers the post is non-compliant and can’t be published through Octoly. It’s that simple and foolproof.
When the post is not compliant, Octoly immediately asks influencers to include the proper disclosure terms. In case influencers don’t comply after several warnings, Octoly will ban them from the platform.
Gifting influencers? No problem
Just like sponsored posts, reviews of free gifts from brands are a form of advertising according to the FTC. As a result, similar guidelines apply: Influencers have to clearly indicate that they received a product for free. No partnership can be swept under the rug.
Since brands on Octoly give influencers free products instead of payments, Octoly Compliance monitoring tool has been adapted to fit this specific form of influencer marketing. We ask influencers to use the #giftedby[Brand] or #complimentaryfrom[Brand] on their posts. This helps ensure that influencers can share their thoughts openly and honestly while also including the necessary disclosure terms.
Creators ❤ compliance
Brands, if you’re worried that social influencers don’t want their posts scanned, stop that right now. Creators want to comply with the FTC just as much as you do. They’ve worked hard to build careers doing what they love and they don’t want to put that at risk. But then again, they also don’t want the headache of triple-checking their posts every time they go live. That’s why they’re happy to have an automated tool that does the work for them.
Some influencers feared that their engagement would drop once they included clear disclosures on their posts. They were worried it would turn audiences off and they might lose followers. But this didn’t happen at all. Our data shows there was no change in engagement before and after influencers started using the tool end of April 2018.
Audiences aren’t stupid, after all. They know that influencers collaborate with brands and this is a big part of what helps them sustain their content careers. Basically, social users won’t reject influencers for reviewing free products. They just don’t want to be lied to. As long as influencers are transparent with their followers, those followers will continue to go along for the ride.
Creating more authentic, transparent content
Octoly is one of the few platforms to have an automated tool that protects brands from compliance risks. With this new tool under their belts, both brands and influencers can rest assured that social posts will be immediately flagged if they don’t fit the necessary guidelines for disclosure and transparency.
As a company that empowers creators to turn their passions into careers, we understand the importance of authenticity and trust. These values lie at the heart of what we do, and that’s never been truer than now. We remain committed to giving brands and influencers the resources they need to create, team up, and build the most engaging content for their audiences.
So sleep well, marketers. We’ve got this one. :)
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Get started with gifting influencers at scale with our Gifting 101 guide!
