The National Media Council prioritizes the importance of following certain guidelines and conditions while posting electronic advertisements on social media platforms.
“The most important conditions that must be followed for practicing advertising activities on social media.”
Since social media is on a vast online platform that impacts the audience on the daily, the NMC insists advertisers to follow special guidelines.
- Simple, clear and understandable language must be used that leaves no confusion among the audience regarding the identity of the advertisement.
- Hashtags including “#ad” or “paid_ad” must be used clearly without being accompanied with multiple hashtags that crowds the caption. The audience must be able to understand that it is a sponsored post or an advertisement.
- Using sentences such as “in cooperation with” or “thank you for … advertiser” is not adequate since it does not inform the audience if it’s a paid post.
- The font used in the advertisement, regardless if it is a video or an image, must be clear and legible to the viewers. Avoid small fonts and using similar font colors as the background.
- If the advertisement is posted as a video, in addition to mentioning in the description, it must also be verbally stated in the video that it is a paid advertisement.
- Ensure your information is disclosed in a conspicuous place for readers to easily notice.
- Disclosures must not be placed on the next page, later in the paragraph or under a ‘Read More’ link rather, it must be placed in the beginning of the description.
- If the advertisement is posted as stories or videos, the disclosure must be mentioned in the beginning of the broadcasting. This applies to all social media accounts.
- The advertisement must clearly be recognizable on social media.
- The ad must be distinctive and placed separately from the original media.
- Clear borders must be placed between the advertisement and other normal content. Moreover, time intervals must be placed during the broadcast with indicative terms such as “Advertisement” or “Advertisement Material”, etc
- Information regarding any kind of in-kind payment paid by the issuing authority for articles published on social media, websites or blogs, must be disclosed.
According to the NMC, it is imperative that any individual who wishes to practice advertising activities and strategies on a commercial basis in return of financial or non-financial consideration through social media, must first obtain an official license from the Council. However, this license will only be provided, guaranteed that the advertisements intended to reach the audience, will strictly abide by the criteria and conditions regarding the official advertisement standards and terms. Moreover, the account holder will solely be responsible for the content of his/her account.
