What Marketers Need to Know About the New FTC Disclosures
Are you confused about the new Federal Trade Commission (FTC) disclosure rules and how they relate to your social media activities?
Do you want to know more about what you need to disclose and how to make disclosures on social media to comply with U.S. consumer laws?
In March of this year, the United States Federal Trade Commission released the first update to the .com Disclosures guide.
Here’s a look at the key points in this update relevant to social media marketers today.
Read the .com Disclosures guide for full details.
The Environment Has Changed
First, it’s important to understand the environment in which this guide was published.
With the first release in 2000, the .com Disclosures guide was an attempt to narrow the gray area of how marketing and advertising worked on the Internet so companies could maintain compliance with consumer protection laws. 
21 Social Media Predictions for 2013 From the Pros
Are you wondering what 2013 might look like for social media marketing?
If the changes seen in 2012 are an indicator, there will be a lot more change in 2013.
To get a grip on what the near future may look like, we tapped the knowledge of 21 social media pros.
Here’s what they had to say.
And if you’re curious, here were the 2012 predictions.
#1: Ecommerce and Social Media Grow Together
Viveka Von Rosen
I don’t know about the world in general, but I am fascinated with the movement of ecommerce and predict that it will continue to trend in 2013.
When I asked my personal ecommerce expert Gideon Lask (CEO and founder of BuyaPowa), he said one huge trend in ecommerce will be the continued empowerment of the consumer.
“No one telling the shopper what to buy, when to shop and how much to pay. Too many retailers are failing by not realizing that consumers want to do it on their terms. Time to give them the key to the car. Empower them and you’ll win loyalty.”
Top 10 Small Business Facebook Pages: 2012 Winners!
Small businesses can stand out in a big way with Facebook.
If you’re looking for some creative examples of Facebook pages from the small guys, look no further!
More than 1,800 nominations came in from our contest. These represent over 500 small businesses.
Our panel of Facebook experts carefully reviewed the nominees and finalists, analyzing their landing pages, engagement, reader involvement and creative use of promotions (among other things).
None of these businesses have huge budgets, yet they all have achieved amazing success. The following are the winners of Social Media Examiner’s Top 10 Small Business Facebook Pages for 2012:
Win Free Tickets: Blogging Fundamentals for Business
***UPDATE: Congratulations to our winners! Stacie Walker won 2 tickets for her winning comment and Phil Mendelowitz won 1 ticket in the Twitter contest.
Want to win a free ticket to the largest online blogging workshop for businesses?
Social Media Examiner founder Michael Stelzner will be teaching a step-by-step course to help your business thrive with blogging.
And we’ve come up with a fun way to get you involved.
First, what is this event?
Blogging Fundamentals for Business is an online workshop that will empower you as a marketer and business owner to attract quality prospects, elevate your industry prominence and improve your sales with blogging.
5 Reasons You Should Measure Social Media Return on Investment
Are you wondering if measuring social media return on investment (ROI) is important?
Do you cringe when you think about putting together another report?
You aren’t alone. But times are changing for social media and these reasons will show you why it’s time to get serious about measuring your results.
Do I Really Need to Measure ROI?
Let’s start by addressing the elephant in the room. Is ROI the right measure of success for social media?
There are many who would argue that a financial return doesn’t show the true value of social media for the organization. I would agree that ROI doesn’t paint the full picture.
However, the bottom line is that executives and business owners sleep, eat, and breathe ROI. It has been the measure of success since the beginning of their careers and while we can jump up and down and tell them it isn’t a complete picture, they aren’t going to believe it until they see it.
Therefore, it’s time to get serious about ROI, but that doesn’t mean that you should sacrifice other types of metrics that help to round out the story. You need both and this is why.
Win Free Tickets to Content Marketing World 2012
*UPDATE: Congratulations to the winners of our free ticket giveaway: Christy Rucker won the written entry and Rachael Seda won the Twitter contest.*
Want to win a free ticket to the largest content marketing event on the planet?
Our friends at the Content Marketing Institute have put together an amazing event taking place in Columbus, Ohio this year. And they’ve agreed to let us give away two tickets to this special event.
First, what is this event?
Content Marketing World 2012 is the largest in-person conference dedicated to helping marketers and business owners master content marketing. This year’s conference takes place September 4-6, 2012 at the Columbus Convention Center in Columbus, Ohio (just outside the Ohio State University campus).
Hundreds of businesses have already signed up, including Level 3, Google, SAS, IBM, Majestic Steel, Nationwide, Deloitte, UBM, Caterpillar, Cisco Systems, CME Group, University of Phoenix and many other leading small and large brands.
Over 70 (yes, that’s right… 70) of the world’s most respected content marketing and social media experts will share their strategies with you.
How Free Speech and Social Media Fit Together
You’ve heard it or have seen it posted…
Someone saying they can say whatever they want, post whatever they want and no-one can do anything to them.
As if the First Amendment is their sword and shield. And you can’t do anything about it.
Freedom of speech. Three words that get thrown around and written about so often that what the expression means is more about misinformation than truth.
And misinformation can be detrimental to online professionals as they try to separate the wheat from the chaff and understand a right so important to the foundation of the United States that the founding fathers made it the first amendment to the Constitution to better clarify what rights belong to its citizens.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Source: First Amendment, U.S. Constitution
This article will specifically focus on the portion relating to speech and how this applies to the online community.
