Despite concerns and all the outrage over its inexplicably high pricing, Twitter is pushing ahead with the rollout of its ‘Verification for Organizations’ option, which enables brands to purchase a gold checkmark for their main account, and verify their employee profiles as affiliates. Let’s not beat around the bush, eh?

Verified Expansion

Twitter first put out the call for selected businesses to sign up for the program back in January, as part of its broader verification revamp, which aims to democratize access to checkmarks in the app, while also establishing a new revenue stream for business. Now, more brands in more regions are being invited to register their interest, which could soon see a lot more gold checkmarks and square profile pictures appearing on your Feed.

That is if you’re willing to cough up the cash. Twitter’s currently looking to charge businesses $1,000 per month for the option, which seems like a high price to pay for a different colored tick – and that’s pretty much it. As per the communications being sent out to businesses. So, here’s what a $1,000 a month for Verification for Organization nets you:

  • A gold checkmark on your brand account.

  • A square profile picture on your brand profile.

  • An affiliate badge, a smaller version of your brand profile image that’s added to approved accounts in the app.

  • Affiliates display on the main brand page, which shows all the accounts linked to the main brand profile.

  • Twitter Blue access for all brand and affiliated accounts.

While you do get access to all of the Twitter Blue features on your main account and any profiles approved as affiliates, you also have to pay for each affiliate you register – if you want your staff approved to give them both the affiliate marker and blue tick, then you’ll have to fork an additional $50 a month, for each profile you add in.

If that seems like a lot, don’t worry because it is, especially if you consider that the regular blue checkmark would just cause you $8 a month as a regular Twitter Blue subscriber. Maybe Twitter will look to eventually cut off Twitter Blue access for brand entities, but right now, you’d effectively be paying $992 a month for a differently-colored check mark. It’s far from being worth it, in our opinion, but perhaps Twitter is hoping that it can reach a critical mass of the brands that do sign up for a gold tick. The potential that the gold tick has on brand recognition could force more brands to sign up to ensure that they remain a prominent and legitimate in-app brand entity.

The Wrap

It’s unsure whether or not this kind of setup would actually work, but it seems to be the principle Twitter’s going with, mainly playing on the exclusivity factor of verified checkmarks. $1000 is a lot for most SMBs, while some reports also suggest that Twitter’s giving away the old gold check mark to approved ad partners, as another means to try and make it big, which only further helps make it a bigger thing, while also being another way to incentivize take-up. Twitter says that this new option is also coming to new regions (US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, the UK, Saudi Arabia, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Spain, India, Indonesia, and Brazil).

Sources

http://bit.ly/3z6R9DQ