Lithuania seeks to regulate social media advertising by influencers

Lithuanian public broadcaster LRT reported over the weekend that Beata Nicholson is a well-known TV show host and author of a number of cook books. She has over 200,000 followers on Facebook with whom she shares daily photos and videos from her life as well as advise about food and best products for cooking. We are living in a «recommendation economy», she says, where someone’s advice is the most potent form of advertising. There are about 300 individuals in Lithuania with a large enough social media following to make them «influencers». Many regularly post positive messages about products and get paid for it. While this is essentially the definition of advertising, only about one in five would mark their posts as such, advertising agencies say.