As many direct selling businesses know, social media use is on the rise. The FTC sent out warning letters on Covid-19 claims in June 2020 to direct selling companies. With these claims on the rise during this unprecedented time, the FTC is now monitoring these companies and distributors even closer. These claims can range from product health claims, to potential earnings that can benefit one’s financial situation during the pandemic. Being proactive about finding any Covid-19 claims can help protect your company from receiving one of these letters from the FTC. Along with monitoring and being proactive on Covid-19 claims, unauthorized sales claims may also be on the rise while consumers are spending more time on social media.

The power of networking comes with being a distributor. In today’s world, many distributors turn to t social media to promote their business and/or products to their friends and family. With being able to promote to a wider crowd at once, this also makes it important for companies to monitor what claims their distributors are making. These platforms are commonly known for being able to share, save and send posts to connections within the network. Some of the popular social media platforms include Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest and Tiktok, and selling platforms such as Mercari, Ebay and Amazon.

TikTok has made the news multiple times within the past few months. Most recently, the company has announced their latest company guidelines were going to focus on eliminating multilevel marketing companies’ recruiting tactics. Although the company guidelines are going to become stricter on this, direct selling companies have already started to monitor this platform to get a head start on taking a proactive approach to dissipate these claims from breaking TikTok’s guidelines. Taking a proactive approach has allowed direct selling companies to send out notices to their distributors and keep these claims from being made again by the same distributor.

While TikTok is the first to place strict company guidelines on multilevel marketing companies, taking a proactive approach on monitoring other social media platforms during the nationwide pandemic may be a wise thing to do. Statistics from a study showed that 82% of respondents indicated that product information and brands were discovered from social media outlets (DigitalCommerce360.com, 2020). With social media playing such a large role in purchasing products among consumers, the need for monitoring sales following guidelines is also on the rise.

With more people spending time on social media during Covid-19, more posts are being published and shared. Company’s have started to take a proactive approach on Facebook Marketplace to ensure their distributors are not violating any of the company’s unauthorized sale policies. Along with the Marketplace on Facebook becoming a trending stop for social media users, many distributors have found their way to private Facebook groups where they can pitch their products to potential consumers, and/or sell the products they have on hand, which may go also go against company guidelines. With trying to reach a wider target of people, distributors are also turning to other platforms to sell such as Ebay, Amazon and Mercari. Mercari is a trending app among millennials and others, allowing them to buy and sell any products for whatever amount they want to sell the products for. Some compliance monitoring companies like

IntegriShield are able to monitor these selling platforms to alert the direct selling companies and take necessary action on reaching out to the distributors for violating policy guidelines.

Growing internet usage among all generations, brings more platforms for distributors and consumers to promote, review, buy and sell products on. From Covid-19 claims to unauthorized sales, being proactive can benefit your company from avoiding complaints and warnings from the FTC. Monitoring every platform allows companies to also capture violating content, provide additional trainings to their distributors and help eliminate the unauthorized sales from reoccurring. Are you monitoring all necessary platforms to fully protect your brand?

Articles for reference: https://www.digitalcommerce360.com/2020/09/16/covid-19-is-changing-how-why-and-how-much-were-using-social-media/