Social Media Marketing: Foundations to Practice · Legal, Ethics, and Platform Compliance
Disclosure Best Practices
Beyond knowing that disclosure is required, this chapter covers the specific placement and wording practices the FTC has directly addressed as insufficient or sufficient.
The FTC's own guidance specifies that a disclosure should be placed with the endorsement message itself, not relegated to an About Me page, buried at the end of a long caption, or hidden behind a 'more' link that requires an extra click a viewer may never make, since disclosures placed anywhere requiring additional effort to find are likely to be missed by exactly the audience the disclosure requirement exists to protect [36].
Key Takeaways
- Disclosures must be placed with the endorsement message itself, not on a separate profile page, buried in a caption, or behind a 'more' link.
- Video disclosures must appear in the video itself; Story disclosures must be superimposed on the image with enough time to be noticed.
- Vague jargon like '#comped' or '#hosted' is insufficient; clear, plain-language description of the relationship is required.
- Affiliate links and personalized discount codes also require explicit disclosure, since profit from the relationship may not be obvious from the code alone.