Mary Kay on TikTok
Yet another moment of “you don’t own your own business” when you’re a Mary Kay consultant. If you owned your own business, you’d be able to go on TikTok and talk about it however you choose. But your Mary Kay overlord says no. You cannot talk about “the opportunity or team-building” on TikTok. The Mary Kay rules say you’re only allowed to post about the products.
Visit the
I’m confused. You can share the awfultunity and team baiting on Facebook and Instagram, so why not TikTok? It’s just another social media platform, and one popular among the teens and young women they’re allegedly trying to appeal to.
Is it something to do with TikTok’s TOS? Or is MK just behind the times as usual?
Tiktok banned MLM activity back in 2020. Lets hope the other socials catch up soon!
Tk Tok’s TOS apparently has strong rules about MLMs in accordance with the Chinese government’s regulations. Personally I don’t have Tik Tok due to the potential security leakage. Meta which owns both FB and Insta currently has rules which should ban this kind of advertising but tends to get caught in their auto-moderation and thus (general) you needs to appeal up the chain until you get a human.
This the the rule for FB
https://transparency.fb.com/policies/ad-standards/deceptive-content/unrealistic-outcomes/
Guidelines
Ads can’t promote:
Unrealistic employment opportunities
Content promising or suggesting unrealistic employment opportunities. This includes but is not limited to:
Guarantees or promises of employment, financial gain, or other benefits without information on the specific job or title, responsibilities, requirements, or risks.
Requirements that a person provides an initial payment or personal financial account information for employment consideration. Note that the requirement of an initial application fee is allowed.
Misleading business models. Ads promoting income opportunities must fully describe the associated product or business model, and must not promote business models offering quick compensation for little investment, including multi-level marketing opportunities.
Unrealistic enticement claims. This includes but is not limited to:
Claims that a person can become rich quickly
Claims that little to no work is necessary to make money
General enticements without listing any details on the role, responsibilities or qualifications
Vague job or income opportunities.
I have the link in a Word document since it frequently comes in useful .
Well I would argue that even promoting the products of an MLM should be considered a violation of this rule.
I have successfully argued this point. I have also been unsuccessful because the admin of the day decided that it didn’t include the products only the opportunity.
Thanks, DJ and DA 🙂
Why do I think MK is big in China? Genuine question, that’s what I thought, they have a major presence there?
You’re right, Juliet. MK used to have a big presence in China. It basically carried the entire company as it was their number one subsidiary until Covid hit. Although it may have started declining before then.
China, seeing the problems that MLMs and pyramid schemes were causing, basically banned them in 2005.
https://www.lehmanlaw.com/resource-centre/faqs/banking-finance/faq-on-direct-sales-in-china.html
“For example, the requirement that sales personnel make upfront investments in inventory, the absence of a return-and-refund policy, and compensation based on number of people recruited are the marks of fraudulent scheme, or chuanxiao.”
Amway actually *left* China – numerically speaking, the world’s largest domestic market – at one point and for a long time because while their government allowed the selling of products by independent salespersons, they totally banned the concept of recruiting a downline, something our own government should have the balls to do but i am sure Amway would litigate against. I think Amway recently re-entered China, although they obviously have to run it differently there. Mary Kay is there as well.