Information has been surfacing over the past few weeks on compliance issues surrounding the use of online social networking as a marketing tool.
At the National Association of Realtors mid-year meeting, US agents were reminded of Article 12 of the Code of Ethics, which states that agents shall be “honest and truthful in their real estate communications and shall present a true picture in their advertising, marketing and other representations”.
Since then, questions have arisen as to what each US state requires of agents when placing information on the Internet.
This post from activerain.com member Robert Rauf states that “Your Local Real Estate Commission considers social networking (Blogging, Pod Casts, etc) to be advertising, and all rules of advertising MUST be followed, and they are NOW monitoring social networking sites to be sure we are being compliant.” The post sparked in-depth discussion between activerain.com members.
After the recent launch of realestate.com’s social networking section, Town Square, a realestate.com employee also discussed the issue in a blog post, asking:
“If an agent is restricted from being able to quickly and easily offer an opinion or response by cumbersome rules supposedly designed to protect the consumer, agent or broker, how does conversation take place? How does active participation occur?”
The common theme amongst responses to the activerain.com blog post was that the specifics of compliance with online advertising rules may differ from state to state, and that double-checking your online presence for potential problems is a good idea.
Related posts:
- activerain.com Reaches Milestone
- Tech Trends from the NAR Conference: Part 7 – Social Networking
- frogpond.com Launches Real Estate Social Network
- realtown.com Reaches 150,000 Users
- trulia.com Gets Social on NY1 TV
- NAR Finds Agents Quickly Going Social
- Report Reveals Gaps in Aussie Social Media Use
- 10 Social Media Terms, Translated
- AgentWorld Connects Leads With Agents
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