Every company needs a disclosure policy. If you believe in the importance of transparency and openness, your disclosure policy will help establish this internally. It will play a critical role in keeping yourself out of trouble, to guiding your employees on proper participation and to honestly reach out to bloggers.
What to do:
- Use the Blog Council’s disclosure policy toolkit. This open-source document includes six checklists on topics such as disclosure of identity, unofficial blogging outreach and creative flexibility.
- Train your team. Lay out the ground rules and guidelines for your social media crew. Make sure they know how to participate ethically and honestly on behalf of the company.
- Put it in your agency contracts. If you and your agency are on a different page when it comes to ethics and disclosure, you’re setting yourself up for some trouble. If your agency makes a dumb move, it’s your brand that will suffer.
Disclosure: As CEO of the Blog Council, I helped write the Disclosure Policy. (See, that was easy.)