With Twitter attempting to enter the fray of its next big push, removing its blue ‘legacy’ ticks and boosting the take up of its paid verification program, many users are now questioning whether or not they should consider signing up, while brands are also considering if it’s worth spending for an all-new checkmark.

Worth?

The answer greatly depends. There are a lot of factors that will likely weigh into your decision. No one can tell just yet what the full impacts of this new push will be, and what it might mean for Tweet reach, performance, and more. So, there are benefits, but also likely drawbacks. The new Verification for Organizations program is probably just too expensive for most businesses to even consider.

In short, here are some of the key considerations that’ll likely factor into your decision on this element.

Verification Options

To clear things up, there are currently three types of checkmark options in the app – Twitter Blue, Verification for Organizations, and Verification for Government. The first one is for $8 a month and is mainly aimed at individuals. The second option is aimed at bigger brands, providing them with a variety of new, exclusive features along with updated visuals. Prices for this start at $1000 a month. The last one is pretty much as you would expect for a name like that.

Direct Benefits

The first consideration is to determine what the direct benefits of each program are. At this stage, this is less likely to be a factor in your decision-making, given how these benefits have been available for months already. Twitter Blue gives you access to highly anti-climactic Tweet editing while also allowing you to upload longer videos and unlock higher Tweet character limits. Verification for Organizations gives you a new dashboard for managing your brand account, complete with a new affiliate accounts tab and all the associated bells and whistles.

Potential Impacts

So, what happens if you don’t pay for verification? Since Twitter will start removing ‘Legacy’ blue checkmarks, businesses that want to keep their blue tick will have to pay $8. The immediate impact will be that the only checkmarks left in the app will belong to paying subscribers, but in two weeks, the expanded shift will see only Tweets from accounts with a checkmark appearing in ‘For You’ Feed recommendations. Twitter added ‘For You’ just in January of this year. While the impacts aren’t fully clear, the increased push to feed more Tweets from users you don’t follow might eventually lead to reduced Tweet reach and response.

Reduced Competition

This could also be another consideration, with only a fraction of Twitter’s user base paying for Twitter Blue (less than 2%). This could mean that Twitter’s algorithms will be looking for more content to push into the ‘For You’ Feed, supposedly keeping users scrolling for longer. This could make it a good opportunity to pay the $8 and get your Tweets into specific streams. Then again, reports have also suggested that Twitter’s going to give gold checkmarks to its top 500 advertisers, and top 10,000 most-followed organizations in the app, as a means to boost take-up, which could also mean that your competitors might get priority exposure.

The Wrap

So, is it worth the investment? Well, as noted, it depends on your specific business and goals, and how much you rely on Twitter. At face value, it doesn’t seem all that worth it for most brands. Then again, if 10k of them are going to get a checkmark for free, that might not matter, as the result will be that a lot of organizations will be getting the same priority exposure.

It could be worth an experiment, though if Twitter ends up eventually pushing all brands to take up its more expensive ‘Gold’ ticks, then it would be a totally different discussion. We suspect that the majority of businesses would be immediately priced out of the race. Granted, there are some interesting features to try out, but the pricing is so awful that it doesn’t justify paying for just a month’s trial. Twitter is essentially devaluing blue checkmarks by selling them, which could give you a couple of advantages account-wise but also risk being shown in a more negative and intrusive light.

Sources

http://bit.ly/3Kpq7wF