What are the steps to FS social promotions compliance?
1. Ensure promotions are clear, fair and not misleading
Given the character limitations of certain platforms, you need to consider whether social media is an appropriate medium for communicating your message.
Financial promotions on social media must always be clear, fair, and not misleading. This can be particularly challenging on platforms with character limits or visual constraints, but firms are still responsible for ensuring all communications are accurate, balanced, and easily understood. Even brief posts must be able to stand alone as compliant without requiring a user to click for more context.
2. Target your audience precisely
Promotions can be shared or referenced quickly on social media and easily end up in front of a non-intended recipient. By using software to help you target specific audiences, you can mitigate this risk.
It's essential to target audiences carefully. Social media content can quickly spread beyond the intended recipients through sharing or reposting, potentially reaching individuals for whom the promotion is not suitable. Using available targeting tools and restricting content visibility where possible helps reduce the risk of breaching financial promotion rules.
3. Present both risks and benefits equally in your message
Give sufficient information to enable customers to appreciate the benefits and also be aware of relevant risks. Describing complex financial products may be difficult when space is limited, so always consider linking to more detailed information.
Promotions must present risks and benefits equally. This means that risk warnings must be as prominent and visible as any mention of potential gains. Whether using text, images, or multimedia, firms must ensure that the audience clearly understands both sides of the offer or investment, without any misleading emphasis on positive outcomes.
4. Use images and video sensibly
When working with restricted formats, images or videos may enable you to convey more information. But remember that this functionality can be turned off, so you need to avoid placing risk warnings or other regulatory information in these formats.
Images and videos can be powerful tools for engaging an audience, but they must be used responsibly. Key information, especially risk disclosures, must remain accessible even if visual content fails to load. Alternative text and captions can help maintain compliance when using multimedia formats.
5. Treat social media as unsolicited financial promotions
Most campaigns on social media are unsolicited real-time financial promotions. As such, the rules on 'cold calling' apply. Being one of your firm's 'followers' on social media or 'liking' your firm's page on Facebook does not constitute 'an established existing client relationship' or an 'expressed request'.
All social media content should be treated as unsolicited financial promotion unless there is clear evidence of prior consent or a pre-existing relationship. Simply following or liking a company page does not constitute consent under financial promotion rules, so firms must be cautious not to breach “cold calling” restrictions.
6. Get financial promotions signed off before launch
Ensure that there is oversight from someone with appropriate competence and seniority. This could be a senior manager or a compliance professional.
Every financial promotion must be approved internally before it’s published. This includes short posts, banners, videos, and even repurposed materials. Compliance teams or suitably qualified senior personnel should review content to ensure it meets regulatory standards, including fair presentation and accurate disclosures.
7. Consider brand or image advertising alternatives
Where appropriate, firms may consider brand awareness campaigns as a safer alternative. Promotions that focus solely on brand identity, such as a logo or company name, are less likely to fall under financial promotion regulations. However, even these must be carefully reviewed to check for compliance with broader sector-specific rules.
8. Ensure risks are displayed prominently with equal billing
Check each financial promotion (including posts, photos, banners, LinkedIn pages and inserts) to ensure risks are displayed prominently, in the same font size as the promotional message. This ensures that this content is not concealed in any way that could be harmful to the customer.
Looking for more compliance insights?
We offer a range of e-learning courses for the financial services industry, which can be found in our comprehensive FCA Library. These courses are designed to help your staff understand compliance requirements.
Additionally, our Essentials Library contains e-learning content designed to help organisations meet fundamental compliance requirements. If you are looking for focused training, our FCA Handbook Training Package offers a complete solution for your compliance programme. Some of the courses in the libraries include:
