Thursday, November 02, 2006

WOMMA & DisclosurePolicy.org: Two Sides of the Same Coin

Josh over at Hyku posted on WOMMA efforts to provide guidance to online marketers engaging bloggers. He even included these 10 WOMMA guidelines:

1. I will always be truthful and will never knowingly relay false information. I will never ask someone else to deceive bloggers for me.
2. I will fully disclose who I am and who I work for (my identity and affiliations) from the very first encounter when communicating with bloggers or commenting on blogs.
3. I will never take action contrary to the boundaries set by bloggers. I will respect all community guidelines regarding posting messages and comments.
4. I will never ask bloggers to lie for me.
5. I will use extreme care when communicating with minors or blogs intended to be read by minors.
6. I will not manipulate advertising or affiliate programs to impact blogger income.
7. I will not use automated systems for posting comments or distributing information.
8. I understand that compensating bloggers may give the appearance of a conflict of interest, and I will therefore fully disclose any and all compensation or incentives.
9. I understand that if I send bloggers products for review, they are not obligated to comment on them. Bloggers can return products at their own discretion.
10. If bloggers write about products I send them, I will proactively ask them to disclose the products’ source.


Our DP Generator provides some language to indicate compliance with word-of-mouth marketing standards, but there needs to be clearer/tighter integration while also recognizing that bloggers own their blogs. DisclosurePolicy.org efforts to educate/empower content creators and audiences, relate directly to what WOMMA and other marketing associations are sharing with their members. We're two sides of the same coin and should probably be working together...whaddya think WOMMA?

3 Comments:

  • DisclosurePolicy.org and PayPerPost have no affiliation with WOMMA. WOMMA does not endore or approve of this effort in any way.

    You can learn more about word of mouth ethics at http://www.womma.org/ethics

    Andy Sernovitz
    CEO
    Word of Mouth Marketing Association

    By Blogger Andy, at 3:42 AM  

  • Andy,

    I'll give you a call to discuss further. DP.org efforts to promote transparency among bloggers/audiences and WOMMA efforts to promote transparency among marketers are synergistic. That's one of the reasons I linked to your WOMMA guideline efforts here.

    I'm a venture investor in many companies that will benefit from DP.org, PPP and WOMMA efforts, and look forward to chatting.

    By Blogger VC Dan, at 7:39 AM  

  • interesting discussion here,obvious the two sides are at variance.I hope Disclosure policy.Org does more in generating custom badges otherwise w are forced to go with crude and wordy disclosure policies which may just be an eyesore my blog http://www.siku-moja.blogspot.com entitled "A Nairobian Perspective "testifies to that fact.

    By Blogger collins Mbalo, at 2:33 AM  

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