Social Media Verification: We All Want It, But Is It Necessary for Small Business and Entrepreneurial Success?
By A.W.W. Barry
There’s more than one way to scale a brand into a thriving business, and social media verification and the boons it can provide to companies both big and small are worth considering along the road to success.
That said, becoming verified is no small feat, even for the most seasoned executives. Verification across all social media platforms is ideal for reaching optimal audiences, but each one comes with its own challenges and restrictions.
What is social media verification?
If you don’t know, social media verification is a small yet significant badge of authenticity commonly found on affluent pages like those of celebrities, actors, artists, authors, and a myriad of well-known mega-brands. It’s easy to miss - go ahead and take a look at your favorite social media platform, then go to someone’s profile who you know to be famous and/or highly credible. You should see a blue checkmark icon next to their profile (or in Snapchat’s case, an emoji of the user’s choice).
Small though it may be, this mark is a symbol of achievement that makes a world of difference for anyone with an account used for income, from influencers, youtubers, and pro gamers to corporations, small businesses, and online entrepreneurs.
What difference does verification make?
Verification is beneficial to both small businesses and corporations alike for a slew of reasons. For one, it’s the best way for people to identify a profile as the real deal. Granted, the number of followers is also a good indicator (around 2K), but there are plenty of imitation profiles that appear just as convincing and professional. As is to be expected, the internet is rife with scammers using fake accounts, but they aren’t the ones whose reputation suffers for it – the company is, making verification a simple yet effective security measure.
The results of verification aren’t necessarily set in stone since verification is a relatively new practice in the online marketplace but keeping up with social media innovation certainly has a proven track record, like using TikTok to create a trend and moving it to posts to Instagram reels as an example.
Take a look at Target. They certainly didn’t start off in the age of technology, but they quickly adopted social media and eCommerce (working with Shipt in online order fulfillment 3 years before quarantine) into their business strategy.
Companies that were slow to the punch, however, such as Walmart, are currently dragging in online traffic. The numbers speak for themselves after all: on Instagram alone, Target currently has an impressive following of 5.1M while Walmart sits at little more than half – 2.8M to be exact.
Why is that you may ask? To summarize, social media verification secures online traffic from scam or unofficial accounts, directing attention that may have been led elsewhere to the official profile. More importantly however, verification provides increased social media followings overall thanks to the enormous boost it provides to SEO optimization.
Last but surely not least, verification is the key to unlocking younger demographics. Data from Pew Research shows without a doubt that younger generations maintain perpetually higher usage of social media than older ones, regardless of platform (save WhatsApp and Nextdoor for obvious reasons). For those who spent most of their lives around the most innovative communication and marketing platforms, that minuscule checkmark is mandatory for any hope of appeal.
How do you become verified?
The procedures for becoming verified vary from platform to platform, the only commonality being the colossal hassle required to fulfill the conditions. Sadly, it’s a necessary evil if you want to get your brand that checkmark.
A great example of this is Twitter, which is far stricter than many platforms in terms of maintaining a strong following, their standard for verification being a profile of “public interest” in key industries. While it certainly helps to have indisputable fame and influence, there are a number of ways to increase your chances of verification without it. This includes having verified information (phone number, email, birthday of you or your company), a completed bio, profile and header photos, regular and public tweets, and a fully completed and functional website.
Keep in mind that other social media platforms will be similar in terms of requiring undeniable proof of authenticity. Therefore, if you’re looking to become verified now or in the future, it’s imperative to keep up constant maintenance - making regular and engaging posts, keeping up-to-date with platform updates and innovation, and making sure that all your information is filled out to the fullest extent and verifiably truthful.
So, what about Meta?
If you think Twitter has a trouble policy, it did, that is until Meta came onto the scene. After the change of face in October 2021, the company has overtaken 2 of the biggest social media platforms on the market: Facebook and Instagram, along with WhatsApp. Ever since, becoming verified on their sites has become a waking nightmare for anyone’s account that doesn’t belong to a bonafide person of interest.
In part, the strict prerequisites are a result of Meta’s loophole testing after starting off with the most buffed-up security possible, indicating that their policy may become more manageable when the kinks are worked out. Overall, the ironclad verification is about Zuckerberg bringing the boot down on bots, hackers, and false accounts, so it may be more of a time saver to become verified around these platforms for the time being.
Luckily there are plenty of other social media platforms that will allow you to become verified without celebrity status, no matter what industry you’re in. Artists have Pinterest, gamers have Discord, business leaders and professionals have LinkedIn, and even Reddit has been seen as being used more by younger generations. Then, over time and with consistency in your dedication to gaining followers, it may even become possible to break through the Meta verification conditions.
With that said, it can be a full-time gig maintaining vigilant social media participation, especially across numerous platforms, which is why many companies invest in hiring social media management. This is where companies like Barryscourt come in - allowing you to hire freelance work to manage media and create regular content that makes your vision into a story, a persona to which clients and perspectives can identify. In doing so, you not only boost traffic throughout your social media and company website, but you also make your brand appear more human, creating a relationship of loyalty and trust between you and your target audience.