Blogging has come a long way since I first started it in November 2004. It was a form of expression and certainly not used for branding, marketing, and product reviews.

In the short five years og blogging, it has created a major shift in the way businesses/brands think about how to spread the word.

In recent years, PR agencies have used “bloggers” as just one tool in their public relations arsenal.  One area that they have really focused on is the “mommy bloggers”for the majority of purchase decisions are made by “Mom”.

It seemed like a happy compromise .. PR agencies get the word out about their client’s product/brand/service  and bloggers got some some free stuff in a variety of forms.  Everything seemed hunky dory.

In October 2009, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) decided to reign in bloggers and these “word of mouth reviews”. They announced the rules that bloggers needed to disclose their relationships with PR companies and free products.

According to the FTC’s website , ” … The revised Guides also add new examples to illustrate the long standing principle that “material connections” (sometimes payments or free products) between advertisers and endorsers – connections that consumers would not expect – must be disclosed.

You can read all about the FTC’s rules here . The rules are not crystal clear — So what is a blogger to do ??

Basically – always use  full disclosure and be transparent as often as possiblein ALL your social media (blogs, twitter, facebook,etc). When you don’t hide anything , there is nothing that anyone can accuse you of.

This should be a regular practice not only in your blog posts but as well as creating a disclosure policy on your blog/site . (To get your own — click here )