General Guidelines
1. Do not post any comment or commentary or distribute any information about an actual ongoing offering of securities by the customer, such as prospectuses, offering memoranda, term sheets, PowerPoints describing the offerings or investor presentations distributed or posted in connection with an offering.
2. If a specialized influencer is a registered securities intermediary, like a broker-dealer or a registered representative, it must comply with the requirements of its regulators and its employer.
3. A specialized influencer who is not registered with a securities regulator cannot engage in any activity that would require it to be registered, e.g., recommend or solicit someone to buy securities of the sponsoring company (no matter the intended audience of such a post, e.g., only distributed to certain investors).
4. You must not:
5. A rule of thumb: Using language in isolation or together with other posted language or information that constitutes a “call to action” to buy or sell a company’s securities is a “recommendation.”
6. You can express your own individual view or opinion such as:
7. You should avoid any suggestion of what others are doing or saying, e.g., “My friends are buying this stock”, or “I have heard this is a great investment.”
8. Do not repeat or re-circulate rumors, e.g., “There are rumors the company is a takeover candidate.” or, “Everybody says this company is seriously undervalued.”
9. Avoid any suggestion or implication you are providing information not generally available to the public or the investing community: e.g.:
10. Avoid any statements suggesting any investment actions you plan to take or have taken personally: “I own this stock,” or “This is a company I am buying.”
11. Do not link a post to or discuss chats or blogs about investing in the company, or investor message forums like Reddit threads.
12. Encourage people to conduct their own research.
13. Strongly encourage people to consult a registered investment professional before making any investment.
14. Do not post or link to content or commentary that discriminates against or harasses anyone in any manner based on race, sex, national origin, gender or sexual preference, or is sexually explicit, violent, profane, or defamatory.
15. You shall be solely responsible for ensuring that you comply at all times with (i) any and all applicable laws, orders, regulations, legal requirements (including the applicable codes, regulations, licence conditions and standards of all Competent Authorities), and codes of any jurisdiction that are applicable to you or your activities, as
amended and in force from time to time, and the rules, regulations, orders, licences or permits issued thereunder, and (ii) any and all guidelines, directives, policies, procedures, rules, regulations, orders, codes, licences, standards, permits, requests and/or requirements of any Competent Authority that are applicable to you or your
activities, as amended and in force from time to time. For the purposes of this paragraph 15, “Competent Authority” means any court of competent jurisdiction, or any other authority or governmental or quasi-governmental body, including a regulator or tribunal.
Regulatory-Mandated Disclosures
ARPP Disclosure Requirements
1. The ARPP requires that influencers disclose if they have a “material connection” to the subject of their post. A simple example of such a connection is being paid cash to post. Examples of other covered “material connections” include familial, employment or consulting relationships or receipt of non-monetary things of value of more than minimal value.
2. The ARPP requires the disclosure be made each time a communication is made.
3. The disclosure must be placed so it is “hard to miss” and cannot, for example, be mixed in with a bunch of hashtags.
4. The ARPP has posted detailed guidance on its requirements for influencers and for social media adverting and marketing generally that can be found on its website.
You should familiarize yourself with these ARPP resources.
Platform Requirements for ARPP-Required Posts
1. Most social media platforms and channels post rules and guidelines on acceptable forms of disclosures to comply with ARPP mandates, acceptable content, disclosure placement and other requirements.
2. Finfluencers must familiarize themselves with each platform’s requirements and must comply with all platform requirements.
3. As an illustration: at the time of this writing Twitter: