By: Illia Belichenko When a social post has to be marked as advertising
Advertising in the legal sense covers any message that promotes a product, service or brand while tied to the publishing person's commercial interest, whether or not money changed hands for the post.
A post about a company's own product or service usually needs no separate advertising label, since the commercial nature of a business account is already obvious to a follower at first glance.
Mentioning another brand changes that once a benefit flows back for it, money, a free product, a discount or any other form of compensation. That reciprocal benefit, not the mention itself, triggers the disclosure duty.
Words like Anzeige or Werbung count as sufficient disclosure, while wording such as sponsored by, thanks to the brand for the gift or collab without the direct word advertising is usually not accepted as sufficient by German courts.
The label has to sit where it is seen immediately, usually at the start of the text or directly on the image, not at the end of a long description behind a see more button that few people reach.
The requirement applies equally to an ordinary post, Stories and video, but Stories leave less time to read, so the label gets lost there especially easily and needs a larger, more visible placement.
A joint post with a partner needs disclosure on both accounts if the collaboration is commercial, and the partner already labelling their own side does not exempt the second account from doing the same.
When an agency prepares the post on the company's behalf, the company as the account owner carries liability for a missing label, and the contract with the agency decides who covers the cost without removing liability toward third parties.
This text explains the legal requirements and does not replace legal advice. Assessing a specific post depends on its wording, the platform and the details of the collaboration.
Advertising disclosure looks like a small detail until its absence brings a letter from a competitor or a consumer association. Illia BizTech checks every post that mentions another brand against this line in advance while managing client accounts, not after a complaint arrives.
Illia BizTech builds and maintains websites for small and medium businesses in Russian, German and English, from the first version through ongoing maintenance and SEO work. A team carries the project from idea to launch without long internal approval chains, so the client speaks directly with the people writing the code and managing the content, not through a chain of account managers. That fits businesses moving to Germany or expanding into the German-speaking market who want to explain their task once, not repeat it on every call.