With all of the recent changes surrounding Facebook, we wanted to help clarify how you can follow these new rules, stay compliant with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and continue to monetize your original content on Facebook. If you are interested in reading about FTC guidelines for all channels, check out this help center article. (This is our understanding of the current policy).
AFFILIATE LINKS ON NON-SPONSORED CONTENT
Facebook (and the FTC) requires that you indicate the commercial nature of your post if it contains affiliate links. If you do not properly disclose the affiliate links, or if your content appears spammy in nature, your post is at risk of being removed by Facebook. Here are steps to take to ensure your ShopStyle links are properly disclosed:
- Your post must include original content that you created yourself, without any financial agreement from a third party. Example of non-sponsored content: Beauty tutorial with your own products, or #OOTD of items you purchased. Does not include: Beauty tutorial with items you received for free from a brand partner.
- Include a clear and visible affiliate disclosure in your post (e.g. #affiliatelink #ad or “this post contains affiliate links”).
- Make sure your ShopStyle link(s) correspond to your content. You should provide context for each link so the user knows what it will be linking out to. For example, you can break out your outfit with links to your sandals, top, and skirt, and label each of them.
AFFILIATE LINKS ON SPONSORED CONTENT
When a brand or company sponsors your post (this includes when they send you free products), you should follow the same rules and disclose it as a sponsored post by tagging the company (your business partner) with Facebook’s Handshake tool. The Handshake tool is also referred to as Facebook’s branded content tool.
Again, you must provide necessary disclosures to indicate the commercial nature of your content. e.g. #sponsored or “this post was sponsored by…”
ONLY MONETIZE ORIGINAL CONTENT
Original content is content that you create yourself and own the rights to. This can include photos that you have taken, blog posts/articles that you wrote, and more. If you did not create the content, you should not be monetizing it using ShopStyle links.
Examples of original content: Photo you took of yourself in an #ootd or a blog post you wrote
Examples of not original content: Image taken off Pinterest of another blogger in an #ootd or a stock image from a retailer’s website
Here are resources from Facebook for more details:
Facebook Branded Content Overview
Facebook Branded Content Policies
Facebook Branded Content Help Center
xo,
Courtney
Images via The Southern Style Guide and Blake Von D
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