Social Media Marketing: Foundations to Practice · Legal, Ethics, and Platform Compliance
FTC Endorsement Guidelines
The FTC's 2023 updated Endorsement Guides significantly raised the bar for what counts as adequate disclosure, and enforcement has followed. This chapter covers what compliance actually requires.
The FTC revised its Endorsement Guides effective July 2023, its first substantial update since 2009, to address how the endorsement landscape had evolved with social media, clarifying that expert endorsements must come from someone with genuine expertise in the specific claimed area, and introducing a clearer definition of what counts as a 'clear and conspicuous' disclosure [34].
Key Takeaways
- The FTC's 2023 Endorsement Guides update clarified expert endorsement standards and introduced a clearer 'clear and conspicuous' disclosure definition.
- A platform's built-in disclosure tool alone may not satisfy the clear and conspicuous requirement if it's easy to overlook in its specific placement.
- A material connection is broadly defined, covering free or discounted products, not just direct cash payment, creating a disclosure obligation either way.
- FTC enforcement has been real, including formal warning letters over dozens of flagged posts with missing or inadequate disclosure.