How confident are you that your brands social media campaigns are legal?

Are you up to date and in compliance with FTC regulations?

Social media is a fun and effective way to engage your audience, leverage your content, and heighten brand awareness, but are your strategies on the right side of the law? With the Federal Trade Commission’s update to their FAQs in June 2015, many social media marketers find themselves giving their social media strategies a legal revision!

This week on the Social Media Social Hour, I am joined by Ruth Carter, founding attorney at Carter Law Firm, PLLC, on what brands need to know about the legalities of social media.

Let’s do this!

About the show:

The Social Media Social Hour is a podcast for marketers and entrepreneurs looking to get on the social media fast track. The podcast is an interview format, where each week I get up close and personal with top brands and influencers to talk social media, tech and online marketing. Each week I also share tools that I personally use to help me with social media management, sales, marketing, accounts management, and productivity. The Social Media Social Hour is presented by Scoreboard Social.

In this episode, here is what you’ll discover:

About Ruth Carter:

As the founding Attorney at Carter Law Firm, PLLC, and an Of Counsel attorney at VENJURIS, Ruth focuses on intellectual property, social media law, business startups and contracts, and flash mob law

Ruth is a speaker, and has spoke at SXSW, the American Bar Association TechShow, Phoenix Comicon, ASU CLE events, the Photographer’s Adventure Club, and the Chandler Youth Advisory Council.

Ruth has been recognized for a number of accolades including the American Bar Association Legal Rebel (2012), and Phoenix Business Journal 40 Under 40 (2013).

Mentionable Quotes:

• “The court doesn’t care what you know, they care about what you can prove”
• “Hashtags have become a great way to provide permissions that the law acknowledges.”
• “Never assume the rules of your state apply somewhere else.”
• “Always check the terms of service, they can change on a daily basis.”
• “There is no general expectation of privacy in public.”
• “You have to clearly and conspicuously notify people when you are being compensated for giving your opinion AND your opinion needs to be truthful and accurate.”
• “There are some “gurus” who will tell you, that you can pull any image that you want as long as you give an attribution and a link back to the original; what you’re probably doing is committing copyright infringement, admitting it, and telling the person about it.”
• “The best thing to do is to use Creative Commons (for images).”
• “If you pin an image, you are making a copy of it.”
• “Always follow a pin back to the original photo on Pinterest, (or assume you are committing copyright infringement).”
• Social Media Legal Takeaways:
  • Have knowledgable sources to get your information from.
  • Have an annual meeting with your lawyer.
  • Think before you post.
  • Never put anything online you wouldn’t put on the front page of the newspaper.
  • Assume everything you put online is going to be seen by 4 people; your best friend, your worst enemy, your boss, and your mother.

Items/people mentioned in the show:

• Carter Law Firm
• Creative Commons
• Federal Trade Commission (FTC)
• The Legal Side of Blogging: How Not to get Sued, Fired, Arrested, or Killed
• Twitter –> @rbcarter

Enjoy the podcast? Give us a rating or a review on iTunes!

*Disclaimer: This episode of Social Media Social Hour and the corresponding show notes should only be used for informational purposes. It does not constitute legal advice, and it does not create an attorney-client relationship with anyone. If you need legal advice, please consult an attorney in your community.