Legislation for influencers: how do you collaborate responsibly?

Influencer marketing is no longer up and coming, but is expanding across the marketing-field. Along with the chances that brings us, it also brings challenges: the market is slowly adjusting (because of solutions like Join) and now legislation-issues are rising. In this post we will check the rules and legislation for influencers that are considered by Join, as well as another initiative in the Netherlands.

Join

We’ve earlier discussed how (not) to collaborate with influencers, but don’t forget that nowadays we have special legislation for influencers. How do you, as an influencer, make sure you behave morally, financially and ethically correct? We try to help you with that – of course. With the realisation of Join’s platform we have taken into account the legislation, as well as the ease of working together in a correct manner. How we do that exactly can be explained by several characteristics of our platform.

Relevance

The most important thing for an influencer is the trust of his or her followers – they enjoy your content en make you whoever you are. The last thing you would want to happen is to lose that trust! Join connects influencers to campaigns only when it fits them. By a combination of technical pieces-of-art like AI Join can match brands and influencers based on target audience, content and context. The platform checks whether the brand and the influencer are a match before the brand chooses who they really want to work with. You will never be asked for collaborations that don’t suit you and your quality can remain triple-A level! Check this blogpost for some cool influencer collabs, including one facilitated by Join!

Clarity

Whenever a brand is interested in collaborating with an influencer the influencer will receive a creative brief. In the brief the brand can clearly define the who-what-where-how and when’s of the campaign. Responding to the brief, influencers can make a proposal and get into contact with the brand through the platform. Have you agreed on content, placement, costs and other matters of discussion? Then the platform generates a cooperation agreement based on your deal. The legislation of the collab can easily be noted in this document. This way you always have clearly defined what the deal is, and collaborations will never be messy!

Transparency

We’re not trying to fool anyone, and therefore we don’t! Brand that work through Join as well as Join itself encourage influencers to be transparent about collaborations. Clarify that it’s a paid collaboration in your video’s or label your Instagram posts with #spon, #ad or a similar hashtag. Also refer to this whenever you get free samples or products, or if you have any other personal advantage from the campaign. That way it stays clear for everybody!

Legislation for influencers

That’s what we do – we try to make your job as easy as possible. We are, however, not lawyers, and for a clarification of the legislation for influencers we gladly refer you to Charlotte’s Law and Fine Prints. In this article Charlotte explains exactly what the rules and laws are, and you can even buy a code of law for influencers.

Social Code

A while ago a group of Dutch YouTubers started a great initiative: the Social Code. This code is an online “movement” that tries to clarify online advertising in YouTube videos. The code consists of a number of guidelines that help you to be transparent about your collaborations. A clear distinction between 4 different situations helps you to know when you have to apply what rules. Join supports the Social Code and encourages influencers to join their movement!

legislation situations social code
The distinction between 4 different situations

By doing so, influencers and brands can work together resonsibly and everyone is satisfied. That makes our business a lot better! Are you an influencer and do you want to work responsibly? Sign-up here! Are you a marketeer at a brand and do you want to do responsible collaborations with influencers through Join? Contact us and we’ll schedule a demo for you!