You MUST Disclose Whenever You’re Compensated!
на канале: The Audacity to Podcast audio episodes
Listen to the full episode here:There are many ways to earn income through podcasting: affiliates, sponsorships, sales, and more. Disclosing when you get compensated is not only the law, but it's also a good way to earn your audience's trust!
Read the FTC's resources
In the United States of America, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) maintains a fantastic guide on working with “endorsements.” This applies to sponsorships, affiliates, “pay to play,” and more.
I highly recommend you read their guide and consult with a lawyer if you have further questions because none of the following is legal advice, only sharing things I think you should do to honorthe law and your audience, not things you can “get away with.”
Why should you disclose compensation?
Many countries have laws and enforced guidelines requiring you to disclose anytime you're compensated for endorsing, mentioning, including, or referring to something or someone. Basically, you should disclose if you're compensated in anyway.
The point is for your audience to have the information they need to make their own decisions about your opinions and whether your recommendations are tarnished by your being compensated. Even if your opinion is notswayed by compensation, you stillneed to disclose when you're compensated.
You might think, “Won't they stop caring if they know I get compensated?” And yes, that's a possibility, but it's the moralthing to do anyway! Besides, there aremany things you can do to earn your audience's trust anyway, and I'll share some further here.
Take BlueHost and its many relatives for example (and yes, I earn from purchases through my own BlueHost affiliate link). These web-hosting providers get highly recommended all over the Internet and they are extremely popular hosting companies. But what you might not know is that they also pay some of the biggest affiliate fees of all, which is probably whythey're recommended so much!
Now that you know that, does it change your opinion of BlueHost or what you think when someone recommends BlueHost ?
That's not to say BlueHost is horrible and should never be recommended, only that you need to let your audience use their critical-thinking skills when you share an opinion and might get compensated in any way for it.
The same goes for any guests you might have in your podcast or at your events, or any products you have visible or even merely mention! If your guest is compensating you in any way to be on your podcast, your audience needs to know that! And if you were given a product to show off or were paid to use it, you need to disclose that!
This is all because it helps your audience make their own decisions about how much to trust your opinions.
Put yourself in the audience's place. Wouldn't youwant to know if the person you were reading, watching, or listening to had some kind of financial or other compensation relationship with the products, services, and people that they showcase?
What kinds of compensation should you disclose?
While I'm not licensed to give legal advice and tell you what you're allowed to get away with, I canrecommend you always take a higher moral approach and disclose wheneveryou're compensated in anyway.
Your compensation could be a discount, an affiliate fee paid to you, a payment for mentioning (like a sponsorship), letting you keep something for free, or earning some other kind of perks like bonus credits that you get to use without paying.
You don't have to disclose the terms of your compensation agreement, but you do need to make it obvious that you were, are, or will be compensated (to the best of your knowledge).
It doesn't really matter whether you're compensated for merely mentioning, using, including, or displaying something or someone; or you're compensated only if someone takes a particular action. You need to disclose it anyway!
For example, I record my audio podcasts with an Electro-Voice RE320 microphone and a first-generation RØDECaster Pro . Both of these were given to me free of charge and with noconditions. I don't have to tell you everything I was given when I'm merely using it, but when I'm endorsingthese products in anyway, I try to disclose that they were given to me, as well as disclosing that I have affiliate relationships with retailers of these products.
When should you disclose compensations?
I hope you understand by now that the basic answer to “When should I disclose?” is essentially “always.” But exactly when and where do you include that disclosure relative to the thing you're endorsing or the guest who paid to be on your podcast?
The first of two most important things about disclosures is that they need to be prominently placed.
For example, the following, alone, would not be good disclosure placements:
• A mention in your Twitter bio that “tweets may contain affiliate links”
• A note in your website footer saying you earn commissions from affiliate links
• A disclo