What Business Owners Need to Know About Meta Verified
This post was originally published February 27, 2023. New information continues to be released as this feature is being tested. For the most up to date information, I recommend referring to the official Meta Verified website.
This month Meta announced the rollout of a new monthly subscription program that will allow users to pay for account verification, making that elusive blue checkmark finally attainable—for a price.
The initial announcement was delivered by Mark Zuckerberg via his new broadcast channel, where he shared, “This new feature is about increasing authenticity and security across our services.”
Right now Meta Verified is only available to 18 and up creator accounts, and is in testing in Australia and New Zealand. But its introduction has most business owners wondering, what does verification mean for the future of social media marketing?
So let’s dive in!
What is Meta Verified?
According to Meta, Meta Verified is “a subscription bundle to help you establish and grow your presence on Instagram and Facebook.”
This monthly paid service provides subscribers with 5 main things:
Verification — that coveted blue check mark, formally referred to as the “verified badge”
Proactive Account Protection — monitoring designed to protect subscribers from impersonation
Direct Account Support — access to customer support from a real person
Exclusive Features — access to subscriber only stickers on stories and reels along
Increased Visibility — increased reach, “visibility and prominence” in some parts of Instagram and Facebook
How much does Meta Verified cost?
Creators can purchase a monthly Meta Verified subscription for $14.99 USD per month (on iOS/Android) or $11.99 USD per month on the web (Facebook only).
This means, if you’re a creator who wants to purchase verification for both platforms, it’ll cost you roughly $27 a month.
Depending on your goals and how you use Instagram, this monthly cost may be well worth it. Or on the flipside, you might view it as just another cash grab attempt by one of the most popular social media platforms worldwide.
Whichever way you’re leaning, today I’m breaking down what we know about each of these features so far, what you can expect, and what questions still remain about Meta Verified.
What is included in a Meta Verified subscription?
Verification
“Help your community know it's the real you with a verified badge, which uses a verification process with a government ID to securely establish your account’s authenticity.”
Let’s start with verification, or the blue check mark as most of us know it. What used to be a visual indicator of celebrity, audience size, and even authority is now changing in the eyes of Instagram. According to Mark Zuckerberg, the new verified badge simply means, “we’ve confirmed that it represents who it says it does. A verified badge is not a symbol to show importance, authority, or subject matter expertise,”
The process of verification is fairly straightforward. After setting up your payment, subscribers will be prompted to upload an image of their government-issued ID in order to confirm their identity.
The drawback? As of now “Meta Verified will only support your real name on your profile. Once your profile is verified, you can’t change the profile name, username, date of birth, or photo on your profile without going through the Meta Verified subscription and verifications application process again.”
Proactive Account Protection
“Get proactive account monitoring for impersonators who might target people with growing online audiences.”
If you’ve ever had your content stolen, account hacked, or just been the victim of a good old-fashioned impersonator, this specific element of Meta Verified may have captured your attention.
However, what “proactive account monitoring” actually means remains to be seen. This is why testing is such a key part of any new feature rollout, and I’ll be paying close attention to the experiences of some of the initial subscribers.
Direct Account Support
“Help when you need it with access to a real person for common account issues.”
Instagram’s customer service has been a long running joke, but Meta Verified promises to change that. The new subscription will include account support from Meta staff.
To put it lightly, this element of the subscription has a LOT of people fuming. Most claim that putting customer service behind a paywall is shady at best and unethical at worst.
While I don’t disagree, the fact is that businesses and brands have had access to 13+ years of using Instagram as a free marketing tool. So it’s not unexpected that the platform would introduce a more obvious pay to play element.
My biggest question about this feature is, if you’re already paying for “proactive account monitoring,” what types of issues will users be needing support for? Is the addition of “direct account support” just lip service to pad the benefits of the subscription feature?
Exclusive Features
“Get exclusive stickers on Facebook and Instagram Stories and Facebook Reels, and 100 Stars a month on Facebook so you can show your support for other creators.”
Do you looooove story and reel stickers? Great, because as a Meta Verified subscriber, you’ll have access to exclusive ones. What those stickers are and how they benefit creators? Yeah, that remains to be seen too.
Increased Visibility
“Expand your reach with increased visibility and prominence in some parts of Instagram and Facebook like comments, search and recommendations.”
I saved the best for last, because yes, Meta Verified also claims to come with one of the most coveted perks—increased reach for its subscribers.
As a reminder, reach is the metric that tells you the number of people who have seen your post. For most accounts, reach has been on a steady decline for the past 3-4 years. Which makes the idea of paying for more eyes on your content pretty damn appealing.
But this aspect of Meta Verified also comes with lots of unanswered questions.
First, what does Meta mean by “improved reach?” Will it be quantifiable? For example, your subscription comes with automatic increased reach of a certain percent? Will this increased reach be limited only to your existing followers, or to new accounts as well? And how will paid reach impact the organic reach of those who simply can’t afford a Meta Verified subscription?
So to sum it all up…
No one is ever thrilled about spending more money. But as a business owner, it’s understood that marketing requires a certain level of financial investment. And Meta Verified claims to be the pathway to marketing yourself with more success and more security.
But even setting cost aside, the rollout of Meta Verified leaves me with more questions than answers. Since this feature is currently only available to creator accounts (not businesses yet) in Australia and New Zealand, only time will tell how it will impact social media marketing in the long run.
So for now, we wait.