Susan Getgood is the managing director of the Blog with Integrity initiative — an effort to help bloggers not only disclose appropriate information when writing posts, but to generally create best practices for bloggers. Susan answered a few questions about her efforts for us:

What was the inspiration of Blog with Integrity?

The four of us (Liz Gumbinner, Kristen Chase, Julie Marsh and myself) had been having an ongoing conversation about ethics and best practices for well over a year when the FTC guidelines on endorsements erupted into the blogosphere in May 2009.

As you probably know, the guidelines caused a great deal of consternation and confusion among bloggers. At the same time, there was increasing negativity in the media about bloggers who participated in marketing programs (reviews, sponsored trips etc.) It was particularly nasty about mom bloggers — “Mom bloggers are shills.” “FTC to regulate mommy bloggers” etc.

We knew this wasn’t true. Most bloggers operate with very high ethical standards, and we wanted to do something positive that would refocus attention on the basic principles that we believed most bloggers live by — honesty, respect and responsibility.

So we created the Blog with Integrity pledge. It’s a simple statement about how we intend to behave as bloggers. A code of conduct if you will. Signing the pledge or displaying the badge (or both) let bloggers reaffirm their commitment to these very simple principles.

What are the goals of Blog with Integrity?

Our goals are pretty simple. We wanted to get people talking about ethics in a more positive way, and we wanted to develop an educational resource for people about business and ethical issues in social media, especially blogging.

More than 2700 people have signed the pledge to-date.

We held two webinars in 2009 about the FTC disclosure requirements, and will be holding more sessions this year on a variety of issues related to best practices.

Do you have any suggestions for what a blogger should include in her disclosure policy?

A disclosure policy is a best practice. The FTC doesn’t require bloggers to have a policy; it wants disclosure on every post that meets the requirements.

I did a session about disclosure at the BlissDom conference earlier this month. The slides are posted as a PDF on my getgood.com/roadmaps blog. There are some specific examples in the slides about language you can use, both in a policy and within the relevant posts.

How did you decide what to include in your own disclosure policy?

I suggest that a blogger include information in her policy about herself, her relationships, her business practices and employment that will help her readers understand her point of view. That’s how I decided what to include in my own policies.

Here are a few examples of policies: