Health claims on social media: describing a product without promising an outcome
Almost every hemp brand knows it cannot say a product cures anything. Almost every hemp brand still writes claims, because the line is not where people expect it. It does not run between strong and gentle wording. It runs between describing what a product is and stating what it does to a person.
Updated 4 minute read
What counts as a claim
A claim is any statement, direct or implied, that links the product to a health outcome. Implied is the important half. A picture, an emoji, a hashtag and a testimonial all carry statements, and a caption that says nothing while the image says everything is still a claim.
- Naming a condition next to the product, in any grammatical form.
- Naming a bodily function the product acts on.
- Softened outcomes: helps with, supports, promotes, aids, encourages.
- Someone else's outcome quoted as a review.
- A hashtag that names the outcome, even when the caption does not.
- An emoji that carries the outcome, which is why sleep icons next to a product name are treated the same as the word.
Why softeners do not work
Helps and supports feel like hedges to the person writing them. In a rulebook they are the claim, because they still tell the reader what the product will do. The hedge changes the confidence, not the category.
Do not write this
May help support a calmer evening routine
Write this instead
A 10 percent full spectrum oil in a 30 millilitre bottle, with the certificate of analysis for this batch in our highlights.
Why. Every word here is a hedge and the sentence is still a claim: it names an outcome the reader is expected to buy the product for. May, help and support do not move it out of the category.
What is left to say
More than most brands expect, because everything factual about the product is still available.
- What is in it: extract type, strength, carrier, other ingredients, allergens.
- How it is made: where the hemp is grown, how it is extracted, who tests it.
- How it is tested: which laboratory, which batch, how to read the certificate.
- How it is used mechanically: under the tongue, on the skin, in a drink. The action, not its effect.
- Who it is not for, which is a requirement in several markets anyway.
- Comparisons inside your own range, on facts rather than on outcomes.
This is why the boring formats outperform on hemp accounts. A carousel explaining how to read a certificate of analysis has no claim in it anywhere and answers a question people genuinely have.
Second hand claims
A claim does not become safe because a customer made it. Reposting a review that names a condition publishes the claim on your account, and in several markets it adds a separate obligation to disclose the relationship if the reviewer received anything.
Do not write this
One of our customers: this finally fixed my insomnia
Write this instead
One of our customers asked how to read the CBD figure on a certificate. Here is the answer, with a real report from this batch.
Why. The account is publishing a statement that the product treats a named condition. Quotation marks do not change who published it, and a review is not an exception in any of the rulebooks.
Checking rather than guessing
Reading a caption and deciding whether it feels safe is the method that fails, because the writer already knows what they meant. A list does better. Ours is a set of patterns per market with a verdict attached: rewritable, or not publishable in any form.
| Layer | Rules that apply | Of which cannot be rewritten |
|---|---|---|
| Health and wellbeing claims | 33 | 17 |
| Direct selling: prices, discounts, codes, orders in messages | 37 | 6 |
| Hashtags: deny list, count, rotation | 27 | 6 |
| Required notices for the market: age, disclaimers, AI disclosure | 39 | 25 |
You can put a sentence through the same engine on how it works and see which rule it hits and why.
Questions
- Can I say a product is relaxing?
- In most markets that is treated as an outcome claim, and the wording around calm and relaxation is one of the most heavily covered groups in our rule set. Describing the product rather than the feeling is the safe path.
- Can I quote published research?
- Citing a study in a way that implies your product does what the study describes is a claim, and the phrasings that present science as proof of a product are covered explicitly. Research about a compound is not evidence about a specific bottle.
- What about the word wellness?
- On its own it is vague enough to survive in most markets. Attached to a specific function or condition it becomes a claim like any other.
- Are hashtags checked as claims?
- They should be. A hashtag naming a condition is a statement in the post, and it is the place brands most often leave a claim after cleaning up the caption.
Keep reading
- CBD social media compliance: the rules that decide if a post is safe
Four rulebooks apply to every hemp post: platform policy, advertising law, food law and the local market. Here is how they interact and how a check runs.
- Reviews, testimonials and creator content on a CBD account
How to use customer photos, reviews and creator posts on a hemp account: what a repost publishes, when disclosure is required, and what to ask for instead.
- Why CBD accounts get restricted or removed
How restrictions escalate on hemp accounts, which behaviours trigger them, what an appeal can and cannot do, and how to keep the account recoverable.
- European Union: CBD rules on social media
What a hemp brand may post in the EU: novel food status, the health claims regulation, the notices every post needs and the AI disclosure requirement.