Showing posts with label FTC guide to endorsements. Show all posts
Showing posts with label FTC guide to endorsements. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

FTC Guide to Endorsements

Hello, good people of the blogosphere! Today, I'm gonna talk about something you may or may not know: FTC Guidelines when posting an endorsement or testimonial.

Did you know:
When you give someone a review, these guidelines say you're supposed to fully disclose your relationship and method of procurement of the product in question clearly?

Neither did I. Not until I was on Goodreads and checked out the link to the FTC guidelines.

If you were given a free copy of a book in exchange for a review, you're supposed to state that in your endorsement/testimonial.

I didn't see anything on the site that said you had to disclose that information when slamming something with a bad review, but I think it should be common courtesy either way.

This raises the following:
How many authors give their books to readers in exchange for a review and have had the review come back with negative tones, a bad rating, or anything else that's critical and not say where they got the reviewed material? Wouldn't it be safer to simply purchase the books and have it be a verified purchase review? Or to gift them?

I don't have an answer. Just food for thought today. If you're a reviewer, you might consider adding whether or not you were paid for the review in your copy.

Today's questions:
Did you know these guidelines existed? Have you ever paid for a review? Did your reviewer mention they were paid?

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo