Advertising, under OAR 863-015-0125(1), means “all forms of meaningful communication by or on behalf of a real estate broker or principal broker designed to attract the public to the use of services related to professional real estate activity.” The rule expressly includes “electronic media, including but not limited to multiple listing services, websites, email, social media, mobile apps, and other online marketing.” In the modern era of social media, the concept of electronic advertising gets messy fast. The rules are not particularly concerned about whether you have a professional social media page and a private social media page; the rule wants to know, “Are you trying to attract the public to your services?” OAR 863-015-0125(5) does allow a special safe harbor for electronic advertisements where the advertising links back to a home profile or home page that complies with the advertising rules.
Consider, for example, a social media post on your private page where you share a news story about a nationwide lawsuit against real estate agents, and the shared post has the caption “as a real estate agent, I pride myself on being honest, this does not represent my industry.” it’s in a distinct gray zone that we have little guidance on, because you would objectively be saying, “public, I’m an honest real estate agent.” Private profiles rarely are built to comply with the advertising rules, so the safe harbor of OAR 863-015-0125(5) may not protect the broker in that situation.
Advertising, unfortunately, is in the eye of the beholder, and our guidance is not extraordinarily robust when these sorts of things happen online. Best advice is either to (1) separate your private and professional life and make limited to no references to your professional life in the private profile, or (2) ensure that your private and professional life are intertwined and that you remain compliant with advertising rules at all times, regardless of which hat you wear while posting online.