Last week, the Federal Trade Commission updated its Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising (Guides). These updates are by far the most radical changes made in 30 years. The Guides are just what consumers need to help them find truth in the plethora of information they are bombarded with on a daily basis.

Robert Urback of Davis & Gilbert LLC, a legal firm specializing in advertising, marketing and promotion issues, feels the new guidelines will affect the advertising and public relations industry’s use of endorsements and testimonials. Some of the key points he outlines from the new FTC Guide are:

• Use of “results not typical” or “results may vary” statements will require substantiation
• Bloggers will need to disclose if they have been compensated or provided free goods or services for their endorsement
• Social media posts will require relationship disclosures
• Celebrity endorsers must disclose their relationship with the advertiser if it’s not readily apparent to the audience
• Disclosure is required when sponsoring clinical trials

The FTC makes it clear that both the endorser and the advertiser will be liable for false and unsubstantiated claims. Consumers will now know if they are being fed a fish tale. It’s about time.

These changes will have little to no effect on agencies or corporate public relations practitioners who follow general ethical guidelines such as PRSA’s Code of Ethics, the guiding document at Marketing Matters. For others, being forced to become transparent will clearly change their game.

I was recently discussing Twitter with one of our custom electronics clients, explaining the values and applications of social media in the world of B2B (please refrain from rolling your eyes at yet another blog post about the benefits of social media – I promise I’m not going there in this post). To illustrate my point, I pointed out a few examples of companies in the custom electronics industry who have Twitter accounts and how each is implementing their strategy. After our discussion, I decided to see how many brands (mostly manufacturers, distributors and a few organizations) I could find on Twitter and came up with the following list.

I would love to expand this as a resource to all who are interested so if you are a company in the custom electronics industry who would like to be included here, or if your contact information needs editing, please contact me at scott@marketingmatters.net, @cscottmoody, or leave your company name and @address in the comments section below, and we’ll update the listing.

Anchor Audio
Antennas Direct
Aperion Audio
Almo Pro A/V
APC
Atdec
Audio Authority
Bell’O
BSS Audio
CableGiant
CEA
CEDIA
Chatsworth Products
Chief
Control 4
Crestron
D-Tools
D&H
Digital Projection
Draper
Eastern Acoustic
Eaton
EDI Enclosures
Epson
Gefen
HAI
Hall Research
ihiji
InfoComm
JL Audio
Just Lamps
Klipsch
Leon Loudspeakers
Life|ware
Litetouch
MediaDecor
Meridian
Middle Atlantic
Monster Cable
NAD Electronics
NEC DisplaySolutions
NetStreams
Niles
Niveus Media
OmniMount
Paradigm
Peerless
Premier Mounts
Runco
Sanus Systems
Sennheiser
Sonos
Southwest Electronix
SpeakerCraft
SmartLabs
TrippLite
Touchstone TV Lifts
Universal Remote Control
Vutec
Wave Electronics
Westinghouse
Wireworld Cable
Yamaha

I strolled into work Thursday morning ready to conquer another day. Diving into my normal morning routine (if there is such a thing), which includes sipping coffee, opening the blinds to let that beautiful South Florida sunshine in, chatting with our Director of Marketing, Michael Plontz, I fire up my computer. While my emails are filtering in, I normally stroll through my social networks beginning with LinkedIn; then a casual Facebook check; then a sometimes lengthy foray into Twitter. Like most, I’ve grown to appreciate Twitter for providing me with professional development tips, breaking news, trends, discussions on my clients, and sometimes pointless information.

However, this particular morning Twitter let me down. Due to an unfortunate hack Twitter (and Facebook for a short time) was unavailable for the majority of the day. While I found this annoying for my own self-serving reasons, it did provide a nice reality check that I think everyone involved in marketing and public relations should appreciate.

As more and more companies utilize the benefits of social media networks, I think it’s important to understand that these platforms are not an end-all, be-all vehicle for all of your marketing and public relations efforts. Services such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn should always be one of many “tools” in your communications toolbox. Instead of investing your company’s entire resources into services and programs owned and operated entirely by someone other than your company, you should always understand that their purpose is to complement your overall strategies. Never fall into a trap where your entire marketing or public relations campaign is dictated on how well someone else’s software works. If you keep all your eggs in one basket and someone comes by and steals your basket, you’re going to be in one eggless mess. Make sure you ALWAYS have a back-up plan.

Now, time to play some social media catch up.