Remember when having a verified social media account was a dream for most influencers and creators, and something essential for brands to reaffirm their authenticity? Well, that dream now comes at a price and can be acquired by anyone on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
Since it first appeared on Twitter in 2009, the blue badge has been used to flag accounts belonging to notable companies and public figures. First on Twitter and followed by Instagram in 2014, the badge used to be a free process for all accounts that met a few specific requirements, one of which was creating relevant content.
“It used to be,” in the past, because it increasingly feels like we’re entering a new era for verified social media accounts. In this article, we’ll dive deeper into this change and explain a little more about what you can expect going forward.
What's the story behind verified accounts?
As we mentioned, it all started on Twitter in 2009, after a legal paraguay whatsapp data battle between Twitter and baseball legend Tony La Russa. The whole situation involved another user account trying to impersonate Tony on the blue bird's website, and at the time, there was no easy and effective way to distinguish between real people and fake accounts. In response to this lawsuit, Twitter introduced the verified badge to help identify impostors.
Following in the same footsteps, Instagram introduced the blue checkmark in 2014, shortly after reaching 300 million users worldwide and becoming bigger than Twitter. Was it a dig at Twitter, perhaps? We can’t say for sure, but the goal was the same: to improve authenticity and keep Instagram free of fake and spam accounts.
As you can see, the social media stamp had only one purpose from day one, and it was all about authenticity: a much-claimed word in the digital world. But now things are about to change, apparently.
Twitter Blue
The first sign of change came in late 2022, after a very controversial year for Twitter. To refresh your memory very briefly, in November of that year, shortly after becoming the new CEO of Twitter, Elon Musk launched the first version of Twitter Blue, his premium subscription service that allows any user to acquire the blue badge for just $8 per month.
Things got a bit chaotic when a bunch of fake accounts started impersonating relevant brands and identities on the app. It quickly became clear that Twitter wasn’t ready to start selling the blue badge, and Elon Musk backtracked and “killed” Twitter Blue just hours after launching it. After enough time to establish better (and more robust) criteria to keep chaos at bay, the plan was relaunched a month later.
It’s official: Any Twitter account that meets the eligibility criteria can now purchase the verified badge for $8 per month and become a verified account. And this time, it looks like Twitter Blue is here to stay: Twitter’s Help Center already refers to the previous criteria (those based on authenticity) as “preexisting verification criteria.”
Meta Verified
And as if by deja vu, Meta has once again followed suit and announced the first tests of Meta Verified for Instagram and Facebook, starting at $11.99 per month. At least they’ve learned from Twitter’s mistakes and are rolling it out in phases: basically asking users to sign up for their waitlist, rather than letting everyone start subscribing to the service at once.
And what can we expect from this going forward?
Given that Twitter’s first attempt to charge for the verified badge failed, it seems bold to see Twitter (and now Meta!) pushing this path. But if we dig deeper, every movement has a reason; and Twitter Blue and Meta Verified are no exception.
A recent forecast from Magna, a media investment firm owned by Interpublic Group of Cos.' Mediabrands, says global advertising growth in 2023 will be muted; and for social media platforms, advertising is nearly a top source of revenue.
Furthermore, things are even more tumultuous for Twitter, as the platform has already lost many of its major advertisers over the past year and is desperately trying to make the platform profitable again by testing different approaches. With that in mind, it makes sense to see these two giants trying to find other ways to generate revenue. This time, through subscriptions.