FTC Rules for Influencers: What Creators Need to Know
If a brand is giving you anything of value for a post, the FTC has rules about how you disclose it. Here is what actually applies.
The Federal Trade Commission requires a clear and conspicuous disclosure any time there is a material connection between you and a brand that could affect how your audience views your content. This is a federal rule, it applies on every platform, and it does not care whether you consider yourself an influencer, a creator, or just someone with a following. If money, free product, an affiliate commission, or any other benefit changed hands, the rule applies.
What counts as a material connection
Paid partnerships are the obvious case, but the rule reaches further. Gifted products, discount codes, affiliate links, employment by the brand, or even a family relationship with the brand owner can all count if a reasonable follower would want to know about it. The test is whether the connection could affect how your audience weighs your recommendation, not whether you consider the item valuable enough to mention.
What "clear and conspicuous" actually means
A disclosure buried at the bottom of a long caption, hidden behind a "more" button, or tucked into a wall of hashtags does not meet the standard. It needs to be easy to notice and understand without the viewer having to search for it, and on video or audio content it generally needs to be both visual and verbal, not just one or the other. Platform-built disclosure tools can help, but using one is not automatically sufficient if the disclosure still is not clear in context.
Why this matters for your contracts, too
Disclosure compliance is not just a platform issue. It shows up in your brand deal contracts, because brands increasingly push disclosure responsibility, and the liability that comes with getting it wrong, onto the creator. Before you sign, you want to know exactly what you are agreeing to disclose, when, and who is responsible if a post gets flagged.
This is general information, not a compliance audit of your specific content or contracts. If you want that, we do it as part of our creator economy work.
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