Post Elon Musk owned Twitter, it’s now Mark Zuckerberg owned Meta turn with the company announcing ‘Meta Verified’ – a paid verification service which offers blue badge on Instagram and Facebook. According to the company, the service will further allow users to protect their accounts from being hacked. For industry players this move will enable the platform to get serious players “Meta’s decision to charge users falls in line with the fact that only serious people will use the platform when it comes to vloggers and other content creators on the platform. This will further protect celebrities or popular personalities’ profiles from being impersonated,” Suveer Bajaj, co-founder Zoo Media and FoxyMoron, said.
Interestingly, the move is also being termed as Meta’s entry into subscription business. Users need to pay $11.99 a month on the web and $14.99 a month on iOS, in addition to submission of government IDs. Industry experts opine that many brands as well as popular faces would be more than happy to pay for such authentication, thereby leading to revenue generation. “Any business would be called a fool not to capitalise on its USP. When it comes to brands, it initially looked at verified accounts differently. But now more than ever, this is a more value-based industry,” Hitarth Dadia, CMO and partner at NOFILTR.GROUP, noted.
To be sure, Meta’s ad revenue declined four percent to $31.3 billion in Q4,2022 and one percent to $116.61 billion, year-on-year for the fourth quarter and for full year 2022, respectively. The company blamed weak advertising demand and tough competition from TikTok. Advertising revenue accounts for 97% of the total revenue for the quarter.
Additionally, this would also mean that in the long run not all content creators who boast of a certain number of followers would be able to command a high fee. According to industry sources, typically popular content creators or influencers charge around 5 lakh plus GST for a 60 seconds reel on Meta/ Instagram.
“This move can help influencers build trust with their followers and establish their credibility as authentic and verified profiles. Furthermore, it can result in an increased number of followers, brand collaborations, and monetisation opportunities. It can also help influencers differentiate themselves from fake or less authentic profiles,” Deepak Bhati, co-founder of DigiWhistle, an influencer marketing and talent management agency, said.
However, for influencers the journey may not be that simple. “It’s difficult to predict exactly how Meta’s monetisation of the blue tick verification system will impact influencers’ businesses. Of course, having a verified account can help establish credibility and trust with an audience, which could be beneficial for influencers looking to grow their following and secure more brand partnerships,” explained Tarun Malhotra, a finance content creator, who has more than two lakh followers on Instagram.