The coveted ‘blue check’ or verified symbol can be integral to a brand’s social media marketing strategy.
When your social media account is verified, it serves as immediate credibility. With Digital advertising spending forecasted to reach $740.3 billion in 2024, getting verified proves that your account is your brand’s real, certified account, eliminating any questions about potential fake accounts. Ultimately, it helps your brand emerge as a trusted, credible account – and can lead to other privileges.
The verification process is different for each platform. This guide details how to become verified on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, and Snapchat.
Although popular, TikTok and Reddit do not yet have verification processes like the other social media platforms. Reddit does not verify who the owner of an account is as that would contradict the site’s premise of anonymity. However, some users may offer some information to indicate that they’re who they claim to be (for example, in the cases of AMAs, people will often post a selfie suggesting that they’re doing a Reddit AMA). Similarly, TikTok has a verification feature, usually only bestowed on celebrity or public figure accounts. TikTok users cannot seek or initiate verification.
Verification on Facebook is indicated by a blue check mark beside your account name.
When people notice the mark, you are an authentic entity. It separates your account from fan or spam accounts that resemble yours. If you want to get verified on Facebook, follow these steps:
- You must complete a verification request form here. Select the type of verification you want (page or profile) and choose the account.
- Choose your account category, depending on your industry.
- Upload identification documents confirming who you are. If your account belongs to a person, a government-issued ID reflecting your name and date of birth must be uploaded. If your account represents a business, your ID must show that you are the owner. Examples of verification documents you can include are a tax document or a utility bill issued in your organization’s name.
- Provide a reason for pursuing verification. You need to specify how assurance will benefit your business. You can supply links to your other social media accounts for additional proof.
- Submit the form.
Facebook usually verifies accounts within two weeks.
Twitter only verifies accounts of public interest. According to Twitter, such accounts typically include “accounts maintained by users in music, acting, fashion, government, politics, religion, journalism, media, sports, business, and other key interest areas.” If your account does not fit this definition, you will not be able to verify it.
To obtain verification, follow these simple steps:
- Open your Twitter profile and visit your Account Settings page.
- Select Request Verification and fill out the details about personal data and your social accounts. Remember that Twitter only verifies accounts that have the following:
- A verified phone number
- A confirmed email address
- A bio
- A profile and header photo
- A website
- A birthday (if your account is a personal account)
- Tweets set as public in Tweet privacy settings
- Submit the information, and Twitter will review and usually approve verification within a week.
Twitter sometimes puts their verification process on hold, so keep this in mind when starting your verification process.
LinkedIn enables its users to obtain a blue check mark for its LinkedIn Lookup product. The check mark verifies that a person actually works for the company listed in their profile.
To get this check mark, you request verification from the LinkedIn Lookup app. They will then send you a four-digit code to your work email address. Then, enter the code into LinkedIn Lookup, and you will be verified.
Instagram is one of the most discerning platforms when it comes to verification. It is highly cautious about the process because it wants its users to be able to find and follow authentic accounts.
Here are the steps to request verification:
- Go to your profile and select the hamburger icon in the top right corner. Then, choose Settings → Account and tap Request Verification and you will begin the verification process.
Fill out this form with your legal name and your industry/category. If you are an individual, you will need to upload a relevant government-issued ID; if you are a business, you must include a utility bill, your articles of incorporation, or tax filings.
Once this is complete, press Send. Instagram will review your application and inform you about the status in your notifications tab within one week.
In addition to having a red check mark next to your account name, your website can be listed on your profile, which will allow visitors to learn more about your business. You will need a Pinterest business account with a confirmed website. After your account is created, follow these steps to get verified:
- Select the dropdown arrow in your screen’s top right corner and choose Settings. From the left-hand side menu, select Edit Profile and enter your website URL. Then, click Claim. You now get to choose between two ways to claim your website. To determine which method you should choose, here is a useful resource.
- Upon selecting your claim option, click Next and then Submit. You will hear back from Pinterest within 24 hours.
YouTube
To obtain YouTube channel verification, you need to meet eligibility, which includes:
- You need at least 100,000 subscribers.
- Your channel must represent the real creator, brand, or entity it claims to be. YouTube checks different factors to help verify your identity, such as the age of your channel.
- Your channel must be public, have a channel banner, description, profile picture, and content, and be active on YouTube.
If you meet these criteria, you will need to reach out to YouTube here to request verification. In some cases, YouTube may also proactively verify channels with fewer than 100,000 subscribers that are well-known.
Snapchat
For Snapchat, a verified account is usually for a celebrity. Snapchat says that to get your account verified you need to have at least 50,000+ unique views on your story. Once you are verified, your username gets an emoji of your choice.
Verification is not guaranteed, but if you meet their criteria, you can contact their team via SnapChat’s contact page to request verification status.
Does Verification Still Matter?
Ultimately, becoming a verified account can be an important milestone in building brand credibility and growing your community. But with many social networks rethinking their approach to verification, it’s essential to seek other ways to build trust with your community.
The good news is that verification isn’t everything. The top four reasons users will unfollow a brand are poor quality of product or support (49%), poor customer service (49%), irrelevant content (45%), and too many ads (45%)—not whether the account is verified or not. Other ways to build trust can go a long way in building community and boosting word-of-mouth marketing and may even accelerate your path to verification.
Alternative Ways to Build Trust with Followers
User-Generated Content
Harnessing the power of user-generated content (UGC) on your social media profiles is a surefire way to reflect authenticity in your posts. After all, 74% of consumers rely on social media to inform their purchasing decisions, and 84% say they trust peer recommendations above all other advertising sources.
Though yoga apparel brand KiraGrace isn’t verified on Instagram, the brand maintains a strong following by resharing UGC from passionate customers.
Look at the posts your brand has already been tagged in, or search through relevant hashtags to identify your most passionate customers and reshare their content. Using automated software like Pixlee’s CRM is a great way to pull in customer photos from brand mentions and hashtags of your choice, no matter the social platform.
Collaborations with Prominent Influencers and Brands
You can also build community with social users by partnering with the accounts they already trust and look to for purchasing decisions. Whether this comes through an Instagram shoutout from a related brand or a post from a significant influencer in your industry, people will be more likely to follow your account if they hear about it from a trusted source.
Pixlee’s influencer discovery tool lets you find individuals whose followers’ interests are related to your product and who might be the best fit for a fruitful partnership. If you don’t have the capacity to partner with larger-scale influencers, micro influencers are a useful option for brands because of their typically more engaged and niche target audiences. Check out our guides to learn more about starting a micro influencer or ambassador campaign.
Social Media Contests
Social media contests provide social users with incentive to follow your account or engage with your brand if you execute them skillfully. Whether you’re offering a discount, free sample, or simply a feature on your brand’s profile, you can encourage customers to share their experiences with your product through their own UGC on social media.
Social media contests allow you to interact and grow your audience. Moreover, people love to see brands give back to their loyal followers. Social media contests are a way to tug at those heartstrings. Check out our definitive guide to social media contests to learn more.
Ultimately, it goes beyond a simple blue check mark to build an engaged community of followers, but putting some of these strategies into practice may help you attain that verification, a highly-coveted badge of approval on social media.
