Pinterest and Product Disclaimers
We have seen several stories around social media in which employees have said something inappropriate about work via social media and companies have had to take immediate action. We have seen the same with postings of pictures that may be considered inappropriate.
The next phase in social media is disclaimers from companies that are making claims on a particular product or service. We haven’t seen much of this as of yet but yesterday in an article by Wendy Davis in the Online Media Daily she explains that Testimonials on Pinterest are now being monitored by the Better Business Bureau’s National Advertising Division (NAD).
This division has now rules that marketers making claims about particular products or services on Pinterest must make the same disclosures as they would in other more traditional forms of advertising.
Davis points out Nutrisystem who showed pictures of people who had lost, in some cases, more than 100 pounds while on the product, but didn’t claim that these testimonials were from paid sources and that these results aren’t typical.
Nutrisystem and its Pinterest account haven’t been the only case. There was another case in which NAD went after Coastal Contacts who had a campaign on Facebook in which they asked people to “like” their Facebook page with an offer for free glasses for doing so. The issue is that the offer didn’t give all of the terms and conditions from the ad, and the NAD cracked down.
Social media can be a new landscape for many companies. Sometimes it is helpful to partner with a company that understands that the details important. This is exactly why we’ve created two social media guides. One guide is for a company beginning their social journey, Social Media 101, and another guide for those that are more advanced, Social Media 102.
