The need for influencers to highlight when they are advertising is “so crucial,” according to the Advertising Standards Authority for Ireland.

Its Chief Executive Orla Twomey was on Breakfast Briefing this morning to discuss the rise of social media advertising.

She said it’s an “exciting new ecosystem” for people to make money online, but they must still comply with the law when doing so.

“There needs to be clean delineation between editorial output and advertising output, and that rule applies across all media,” said Ms Twomey.

“With social media influencers, the difference with them is their content is editorial, user-generated content, that is talking about what they want to talk about, and then other times it's advertising.

“That’s why it’s so crucial in that area that they always disclose when it's advertising and when it’s not as the lines can become blurred.”

Understanding the law

Ms Twomey said some influencers may not understand advertising laws.

“If someone is a brand ambassador, they are required to do a certain number of set things for that brand,” she said.

“But when they talk about the brand outside of those set things, that should still be tagged as an advertisement because they’ve got this ongoing commercial relationship.”

Snapchat, Instagram and TikTok apps on an iPhone. 2021. Picture by: Koshiro K / Alamy Stock Photo

There are other, more complicated brand relationships out there too.

“If you’re provided with a free product or service and expected to make three posts in a month, or whatever, that’s advertising,” said Ms Twomey.

“It’s not gifted, because you are under an obligation to do something for the brand.

“It is an area that has a lot of nuances and I think there’s a lot of compliance, but things can go wrong sometimes and that’s why we have the code.”

Jurisdictions

Ms Twomey said international co-operation is important in tackling illegal advertising.

“Jurisdiction of any space online can go across borders it’s not just in relation to social media sites,” she said.

“If we were to find content, we couldn’t deal with it because it was outside our jurisdiction, we can refer that to the advertising standards body in the country of the influencer.

“A lot of influencers are based in the US where the Federal Trade Commission has very strong enforcement powers if they feel that influencers aren’t disclosing appropriately.”

Trust

It also bodes well for influencers to comply with regulations to keep the trust of their audience, said Ms Twomey.

“Trust is very important,” she said.

“We do publish our adjudications and you have situations where someone can search and find, that the influencer they are following has abused that trust.

“That they haven’t actually said that something is advertising”

Ms Twomey added that it “doesn’t matter if the influencer is big or small,” they must disclose advertising properly.

Main Image: An influencer vlogging from his couch. Credit: Adrian Vidal / Alamy Stock Photo