The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) approved final revisions to its Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials (Guides) that will go into effect Dec. 1, 2009. The revised Guides embody the broadest changes to occur in regards to endorsements and testimonials in almost 30 years! Due to these significant changes, the way public relations firms and their clients use blogs and social networking sites as marketing tools will undergo changes and have new rules to follow. Whether a PR practitioner likes the new FTC regulations or not is irrelevant; beginning Dec. 1 they must be followed.

Here are 11 things PR firms are encouraged to follow in response to the FTC changes:

1. Advise bloggers with whom there is a material connection (i.e. provide payment or free product for review, etc.) to disclose the relationship with the client whenever making a positive review.
2. Monitor company’s/client’s bloggers to ensure they make the necessary disclosures and their statements are not misleading or bias. If the blogger doesn’t follow the guidelines, cease all sponsorships to the blogger and halt the publication of the misleading representations when they are discovered.
3. If hiring a blog service, confirm that the service provides guidance and training to its bloggers to ensure blogs are being done correctly.
4. Tell employees of the client or its PR firm should clearly disclose their relationship to the client if posting messages on on-line discussion boards.
5. Introduce written policies and procedures to client’s employees concerning new rules of social media participation.
6. Advise “street team” members who receive any form of consideration for promoting a client’s products or services to disclose their connection to the client.
7. Advise celebrities to disclose their relationship with the client when they are paid for promoting products in media – talk shows, interviews and social media sites (Twitter, Facebook, etc.).
8. Require spokespeople to undergo enhanced media training to ensure they understand what disclosures must be made in the media and what representations they can make about the client’s product or service.
9. Consider the target audience for the blog, social media site or other communication venue to determine the appropriate level of disclosure. First, ask yourself whether the intended audience of the message is likely to be deceived with the disclosure of some fact or circumstance.
10. Seek advice from legal counsel to help determine what should be disclosed in particular situations when the client and PR firm are having difficulty with the revised Guides
11. And just for our blog readers, we’ve included an additional step to how PR should respond to FTC blogging regulations… Attend the 2010 Texas PR Leadership Day and Gala “Get Connected!” conference where you will learn how to be Web 2.0 savvy! Visit TPRA for more details.

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Texas Public Relations Association held its “Media Relations 2.0” workshop in Lufkin on Oct. 29 where a panel of PR professionals, reporters and broadcasters discussed the changes social media has made on the way consumers get their news and its effect on the public relations industry.

This workshop allowed all attendees to discuss how to evolve with the ever-changing social media industry’s captains Twitter and Facebook; explore how to pitch stories to the new media world; and dive in to how important building relationships with the media is. Andy Adams (Editor of Lufkin Daily News), Tina Alexander-Sellers (News Director, KTRE-TV), BethAnn Black (PR Professional/Agency Owner), Pam Rosen (Social Networking Manager for Shell Oil Company) and Rebecca Elliott (Sr. Communications Manager for Shell Oil Company) were featured on the distinguished panel for the 2.0 workshop.

This is the first PR workshop for East Texas and had a great turnout (41 attendees) despite the stormy weather conditions. TPRA hopes to increase its membership by coordinating events like these to provide PR opportunities for smaller Texas cities.

Mark you calendars for March 5 in Austin, Texas for the Texas PR Leadership Day and Gala.  This gathering of state-wide communicators will focus on “Get Connected:  Personally, Professionally and with your Planet.”  You’ll be seeing more about this day during the next few months.

What is this day you may be asking?  It’s the 2.0 version of our annual conference.  We’re beefing up the line-up, streamlining the day and promoting it throughout the state to make this the largest gathering of Texas communicators.

Making this a reality is a dedicated group of students from Texas State University in San Marcos.  Dara Quackenbush — fellow TPRA member by night, college professor by day — assigned four students from her senior PR campaigns class to partner with me to develop and execute to a PR plan.  They have really done a great job and have designed a social media strategy leveraging our two platforms — this blog and Twitter.  They will be jumpstarting the conversation about PR in Texas and keeping you up to speed on how to get involved in the Leadership Day and Gala.

Also, to build on what the students are doing, I’m hosting a kick-off conference call for everyone who wants to help with the Leadership Day and Gala.  I’ve got folks from El Paso to Dallas to San Antonio who’ve already volunteered.  Just let me know if you want to help as well by replying to this blog.

See you in Austin!

From Barb Dybwad at Mashable.com, we learn that Australia’s Griffith University is requiring journalism students to learn how to tweet. Good thing, too. At the Houston PRSA media day recently, TPRA/PRSA  member Terri Larson twittered what one panelist told the crowd – Twitter is the new police scanner.

TPRA member and Abilene Christian University instructor David A. Hogan, APR,  sets down his thoughts on the reluctance of investor relations departments to use social media tools to reach their shareholders.

Hogan presented his paper recently at the 2009 Annual Conference of the International Association of Online Communications.  Read his paper here.

Are you an East Texas professional communicator? Mark October 29 on your calendar. TPRA is coming to you with “Media Relations 2.0″.  To register, call Yana Ogletree at 936-639-7163 or YOgletree@memorialhealth.org.

As most know by now, last Thursday, October 1, 2009, David Letterman admitted on Late Night with David Letterman that he had had sex with women on his staff. This was associated with a threat he had received to be blackmailed.

Regan.com, that provides, “News, ideas & conversations for communicators worldwide,” this morning posted an interesting article this morning (Oct. 5, 2009) addressing this issue. The article quotes Fraser Seitel, who, according to Regan.com is a prominent PR author, teacher and managing partner of Emerald Partners public relations. For the most part it states that Letterman took the steps that so many PR professionals suggest to clients when facing a potential threat of bad news being “leaked out” by other parties. Letterman addressed the issue and confronted the possible outcomes that could have happened if he hadn’t.  Good for you, David, to step forward! Bad for you, David, that you made bad judgement calls in the past! Now, we’ll see how his reputation moves forward.

Here is the link to the Regan.com article that includes the 10-minute video from the October 1, 2009, Late Night with David Letterman: http://is.gd/3YCtw.

What do you think?

Are you facing budget and staff cutbacks at the office? Are you concerned about the impact – on you, your team, the rest of the organization? Are you responsible for providing clear communication counsel amid mounting anxiety and disruption? Then this TPRA tele-webinar session is for you.

On Tuesday, October 6, learn how to balance good news with the bad, proven methods for communicating with candor and credibility, and how to re-engage your surviving work force.

Click here to register. Deadline is Monday, October 5.

Fellow Houston PR executive Sharon Dotson posted this article on her Facebook page today. It’s a concise, honest appraisal of what this group should have done to earn PR for its event. Imagine the heartache of organizing a charity fundraiser with celebrity guests at Harlem’s Apollo Theater for 1,600 people and getting no press. Nada, zip. Read on to see how it happened and what DoSomething.org will do differently next time.