Guidelines for advertising your business on social media

The Competition and Consumer Authority has clarified its marketing guidelines, which have caused much discussion.

In January, the Competition and Consumer Authority (KKV) published an updated influencer marketing policy, which provoked lively discussion at times on social media. Some business owners have been bemused by the guideline stating that a business owner should also tag a post on a personal social media account with the word “advertisement” if the business owner was advertising their own company.

On 3 Feb., Yrittajat.fi contacted the KKV communications department and asked for further information about the policy. A day later, the KKV published a Q&A section on its website.

The KKV says that commercial cooperation posts “could be clearly identified as marketing regardless of whether the influencer considers their account more personal or more business-related”. The KKV says that in unclear cases, using the Advertising tag can ensure that the commercial purpose of the content is clearly apparent “without the risk of confusion”.

If the social media account is in a company’s name, the KKV considers its posts marketing by default, without the need for an Advertising tag.

On a business owner’s personal account

The KKV says that no tag is necessary on a post if the purpose is not to market a company’s product or service but rather “to tell readers about the business owner’s life”. If, on the other hand, an influencer’s or other social media user’s intent is to promote sales of a product or service, it is marketing, which should be mentioned in the post. For example, it is marketing when a user praises a product they have bought or shares a link to buy a product or service.

The KKV clarifies its own role thus: “The Consumer Ombudsman cannot define all possible practical situations in advance in which marketing can be recognized without a tag. Recognizability depends on the way the post is made. That is why the Consumer Ombudsman recommends tagging advertisement posts with a clear advertisement tag. Then, the influencer does not need to assess whether the post is recognizably marketing; rather, they can ensure the post is legal by tagging it.”

The KKV says that an advertising tag may not be necessary when a writer talks about their book or an artist about their gigs.

The KKV writes in its instructions: “The fact that a marketing post is not tagged as an advertisement does not automatically mean that the post is illegal. The post may be easily recognizable as marketing without an advertising tag. That could be the case, regardless of how the post is made, such as when a writer clearly says that they are speaking about a book they wrote themselves, when a performer talks about their upcoming gig on their performer account, or when an influencer clearly states that a training session they’re praising is one they offer. However, posts are not always that easily recognizable. That could happen in cases where the influencer praises a shirt but does not mention that it is from their own clothing brand.”

“Received” not enough

The KKV says that the words “received” and “PR” used in influencer marketing do not provide enough information about the marketing purpose in enough clarity. Better alternative tags would be “Advertisement/Received” or “Received for advertising purposes”. Other sufficiently clear expressions could also be used.

The KKV notes that its instructions cannot consider all situations in which guidelines may be needed. “We have been as precise as we consider in our consideration necessary, and many situations require influencers to use their own discretion. The policy arises from legislation and the interpretation thereof, not opinions,” the text published on Tuesday says.

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