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Misinformation is an obvious problem with social media. The temptation for content marketers to inflate the benefits of their offers is understandable. However, it is becoming a very risky move that should be avoided at all costs.
Simone Anderson, a weight-loss guru from Auckland, New Zealand, had to discover that the hard way. On July 1, the New Zealand Herald recorded that Simone Anderson had been subjected to four complaints by the New Zealand Advertising Standards Authority.
The advertising regulator said that Anderson misrepresented certain elements of her brand. The complaints were initiated after some of her followers said that she didn’t provide proof that she had donated some of her revenue to charities, as she had claimed.
The ASA looked into other concerns as well. They determined that some of her content qualified as advertising, but was not properly disclosed under native advertising transparency laws.
This is a major landmark precedent in New Zealand and the rest of the world. It is the first time that New Zealand regulators have sanctioned a social media influencer for making inaccurate or unverifiable claims. It almost certainly won’t be the last in New Zealand or any other country. People making money on Instagram must learn from this case.
What does the Simone Anderson case mean for other Instagram marketers?
Other Instagram marketers must take heed from this recent decision. They will need to be more cautious about being transparent and making accurate claims, whether they are trying to generate sales or attract more followers.
Social media websites have recently had to come to terms with the problematic behaviors of certain marketers. During the 2016 presidential election, Facebook had to deal with massive amounts of fake news. Pressure from lawmakers and users encourages them to start censoring misleading social media content.
Instagram is a subsidiary of Facebook. The child company has started using the same fact-checking algorithms that Facebook uses to identify fake news and highly misleading content. However, Instagram does not take the same corrective action. Misleading content is not removed from the image sharing site, unless there are grave concerns about safety or legality.
This has caused some marketers to be complacent with their own fact-checking processes. They might have thought that they were getting a free ride that wasn’t possible with Facebook. However, the Simone Anderson case shows that they will have to pay for their carelessness or malicious misrepresentations in a much more expensive way.
They are going to need to take more aggressive fact-checking measures. Here are some precautions Instagram marketers should start to take.
Always mark sponsored content
Are you paying influencers to share your content? Are you getting endorsed for content that you have shared on your own feed?
You need to start marking that content as being sponsored. This is a transparency regulation there is enacted almost everywhere in the world. This is one of the biggest mistakes that Simone Anderson made that led to her complaints by the ASA.
Use third-party data to support your claims
You might share statistics about your products and services in good faith. Unfortunately, if you can’t clearly document the basis of your data, then you might get into trouble with Instagram or advertising authorities.
It is best to have third-party sources to verify it. You should consider hiring an independent company to access your products and services, so you can reference their data in your content.
This isn’t just helpful for compliance purposes. It will also help you build trust. This is one of the reasons that the CBD industry frequently uses third-party laboratory testing.
Never misrepresent endorsements by celebrities or organizations
Many companies have gotten into trouble for claiming that their products have been endorsed by individuals and organizations that they have never worked with. The American Sleep Association has come down hard on companies claiming that they have endorsed their products. You need to be very careful about making these types of claims. You should always have a paper trail showing where any endorsements have come from.
Transparency and Accuracy is Crucial for Instagram Marketers in 2020
The rules of advertising are changing for Instagram marketers. They need to make sure that they can authenticate all of their claims to the best of their abilities. It is important to be as honest and transparent as possible.
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This content is brought to you by Daniel Bailey.
Photo: Shutterstock
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