If you think your company's Facebook or Twitter page is just a way for your followers, or those that "like" you to communicate, you'd be wrong.

The Advertising Standards Bureau (ASB) recently decided that Facebook is in fact an advertising medium and not just a means of communicating. The decision came after complaints were received about Smirnoff Vodka and VB's Facebook pages.

The determination of the ASB was guided by the decision in ACCC v Allergy Pathway (2011) which found that misleading and deceptive "testimonials" left on Allergy Pathway's Facebook and Twitter pages were in contempt of Court. The contempt arose from the Court's prior decision that certain representations made by Allergy Pathway were misleading and deceptive "in its ability to diagnose and treat allergies".

The Smirnoff Decision

In this particular case, a complaint was made to the ASB regarding the images on Smirnoff's Facebook page. According to the complaint, these images showed people engaging in excessive consumption of alcohol and images of young people with an alcoholic beverage in their hand.

Diageo (the parent company of Smirnoff) argued that "Facebook is a communications channel or medium....therefore it is not appropriate to consider all content as advertising material".

The ASB decided that a brand's Facebook page does fall within the definition of advertising or marketing communications under the Advertiser Code of Ethics (the Code). Ultimately, however, the ASB dismissed the complaint against Smirnoff as it found that the people in the images seemed confident and in control and that "no images of people appeared to indicate an excessive consumption of alcohol".

The VB Decision

For VB, the decision didn't turn out so well.

The complaint made here was in relation to user comments on VB's Facebook page that were posted in reply to questions posed by VB. An example of one of the user comments was, "women should be chained to da kitchen" (sic).

The user comments were found to include discriminatory, insulting, and strong and obscene language.

As in the Smirnoff decision, it was decided that user comments on a brand's Facebook page fall within the definition of advertising or marketing communication and the ASB determined that Fosters Australia was responsible for those user comments.

The ASB found that user comments on the Facebook page of an advertiser are to be considered a marketing communication tool over which the advertiser has a reasonable degree of control and that the provisions of the Code apply to an advertiser's Facebook page.

How do these decisions this relate to your business?

The lesson learnt from these decisions is that if you have a corporate or branded Facebook page or engage in other social media, you should be monitoring any user comments posted to avoid your company landing in hot water.

Following the ASB findings, companies have raised concerns about the potential impact the decisions will have on companies and the extra responsibilities attributed to monitoring comments made on social media portals.

The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.