Can you trust what you read in Social Media when it comes to product reviews and endorsements?
One of the country’s oldest and most trusted Hi-End Retailers just got nailed by the Feds for allegedly paying “reviewers” thousands of dollars to post favorite reviews of a new product.
According to the FTC:
“Over the same weekend in March 2015, Lord & Taylor gave 50 select fashion influencers a free Paisley Asymmetrical Dress and paid them between $1,000 and $4,000 each to post a photo of themselves wearing it on Instagram or another social media site. While the influencers could style the dress any way they chose, Lord & Taylor contractually obligated them to use the “@lordandtaylor” Instagram user designation and the hashtag “#DesignLab” in the caption of the photo they posted. The company also pre-approved each proposed post.”
“In total, the influencers’ posts reached 11.4 million individual Instagram users over just two days, led to 328,000 brand engagements with Lord & Taylor’s own Instagram handle, and the dress quickly sold out.”
BTW: This is UNPAID, I may be poor, but I’m not “beholden” to anyone at this time. ‘Cept the Mrs…and the dog.
Last March, some 2 dozen companies got charged with paying for online “reviews”. Ever do business with any? According to the press release, these were the 19 companies penalized by the FTC: Here’s the list
By Al Sunshine, SouthFloridaReporter.com, Consumer Investigator, Mar. 16, 2016
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