Should you pay Instagram for verification?

Introducing paid Instagram verification tiers

If you have not yet seen the news, last week Instagram/Meta announced that they were introducing tiers for paid Blue check marks. You pay a monthly fee to Instagram/Meta, and you get a blue tick and benefits befitting that payment. The cheapest rate is $15/ month and the most expensive is $350/ month !! But before everyone completely freaks out, let’s look at this a little more closely.

I’ve popped a screen shot in below so you can see some of the different tiers.

In terms of the value of blue ticks and the tiers -

The main reason people are freaking out is because the whole point of a tiered monthly subscription is that you get different benefits at different levels, and it is the benefits that are making people worried.

There has been the suggestion that having a subscription will enable you to effectively buy more views through the prioritisation of your content in the search tool.

But I want to suggest everyone chill out a bit, because I actually think there’s not as much cause for panic as is being suggested.

My thoughts:

First up - this has not been rolled out yet for the vast majority of accounts. In theory it is still in a trial phase. There is a looooong way to go before any potential effects for those who haven’t signed up roll around.

Secondly - there is no urgency for anyone to decide if they do or don’t want to buy into this subscription when it does become available. You can take your time. If it is offered to you, you do not need to decide immediately whether you will or wont jump on board.

Thirdly - if you are thinking about getting on board, go in with your eyes open to the long term financial implications of that. The second we start paying (anything!) to Meta/ Instagram, it indicates that when push comes to shove we will continue to pay to have our content seen. This inevitably means going forward, Meta/ Instagram will make sure we DON’T get reach unless we pay for it. This holds true for ads and boosted posts as well. I have known many people in the past who started to pay for reach to test it out and then when they found it not working so well, stopping led to near zero reach as the result! So if you want to jump on board, with the idea in the back of your mind that you could always opt out at a later stage, just be aware that opting out has the potential to damage your ongoing future organic reach.

Now this is not to say that it is wrong to advertise on Instagram or pay money to Instagram/ Meta, only that once you have started, don’t expect to be able to stop without some repercussions. Once you start spending money you will want to keep doing so to reach your audience (and yes, I am aware of some Quiet Creative accounts who have a strategy that involves regular advertising spend that works well for them, only it is in the order of hundreds of dollars a month spend which many Quiet Creatives budget simply don’t stretch to).

Would I pay for Meta verified?

Currently, absolutely not.

I have built an account in a sustainable way over the years and I have a lovely community of folk over there. I socialise in Instagram with people who, like me, use the Following feed to make sure they get to see posts from those accounts they follow. And I know how to use Reels to best reach new audiences, and my grids and profile to convert them to new followers.

The only reason I could see benefit from paying a subscription to Meta verified would be for support in case of any issues with my account being hacked or scammers gaining access to it.

But even then, I have systems in place for protecting my account and I am well versed in the scams that are pedalled that most often trip people up.

So should you get Meta Verified?

This, in the end, all comes down to your personal situation.

It relates to the type of account you have, who your audience are and how much competition there is in your niche, and how susceptible you think you are to being scammed or having your account hacked in the future.

My feeling is that for the vast majority of Quiet Creatives paying for Meta verified would have little benefit. Unless you are genuinely concerned about being hacked or scammed.

For now I will stay well away from giving Meta my credit card details.

X Ilona

PS - Regarding being hacked - the truth is I have never heard of someone losing an account to genuine hacking. I’ve only ever heard of scams taking advantage of peoples well meaning intentions that have resulted in this tragedy. So if you feel comfortable keeping the scammers at bay, I can see why you would be fine not paying for Meta verified.

If you don’t, or you’ve never been the target of a scam so you’ve not seen it in action, I have a pdf on how to help keep your accounts safe. I’ll write more about that next week and share a link to it there.