accessibletech ANDREW KANTOR
1913-2013
CODE OF ETHICS
What and where to disclose online With more and more electronic communication being done in public — the “social” part of social media — you’ll find that you can never really remove your Realtor hat. That means you need to be extra careful when you’re writing an e-mail, crafting a blog post, or replying to a tweet. There are disclosure rules from both the Virginia Real Estate Board and the Realtor Code of Ethics that apply online whenever you engage in “advertising.” And believe me, the definition of “advertising” is pretty broad (See “What is advertising?”).
But first, the basics. You must disclose the following in any communication that could be construed as advertising: •Y our name •Y our firm name and where it’s located (either the main office or the office you work out of) •W hat states or regions you’re licensed in But that doesn’t mean you have to put all that information in every message. The one-click-away rule: Those disclosures must be made either in the message itself or on a Web site that’s one click away from the message. (Twitter is an exception; more on that in a moment.) As we’ll see, that makes meeting your disclosure requirements very simple. 32 April/may 2013
E-mail This is the easiest one of all: Simply add a signature line to all your e-mails that includes the disclosure information. (We’re not talking paragraphs of legalese. Your non-business contacts will understand.) Jane Doe, Realtor® Schlobotnik Realty, Blacksburg Licensed in Virginia and North Carolina. If even that’s more than you’d like to stick on the end, just include a link to a Web page that contains it: Learn more about how Schlobotnik Realty and I can help you at www.janedoerealtor.com/about. That meets the Code’s requirement of having your firm name included, and it takes advantage of one-click-away to keep the whole disclosure thing down to one line.
Twitter Twitter presents a unique problem in that posts — tweets — are limited to 140 characters; adding a link to your disclosure page is pretty much impossible without severely limiting your tweeting ability. That’s why the Code makes a specific (and simple) exemption for Twitter in the Code: Your individual tweets don’t need a link to your disclosure statement, but your Twitter profile page must have it. Unlike Facebook, Twitter does allow you to include whatever you want on that profile page (well, up to 160 characters), so it’s easy to put the entire disclosure text right there.
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