Is Meta Verified Worth It for Small Businesses?

In recent years, paid subscription services have made their way to social media channels – each promising various benefits to the subscriber. Meta has become one of the latest to offer this service to their users with the launch of Meta Verified. In the past, a verified check was a free way for businesses to show credibility to their customers. Now it is locked behind a subscription and comes with additional benefits. But is it worth it for small businesses to opt in?

Let’s take a deep dive into Meta Verified, what it entails, what your business gets from it, and whether it’s worth the extra expense.

What is Meta Verified?

Meta Verified is a subscription program that has evolved from its previous free verification program. By subscribing to this program, businesses and content creators gain the coveted blue checkmark badge on their profiles, priority customer support, and enhanced account security.

While the previous free program was limited to accounts that were deemed important through public interest, Meta Verified is now available to any account that meets specific eligibility criteria. You’ll need to undergo an identity verification process and comply with a host of Meta policies within your Facebook and Instagram profiles.

The cost of this program varies as there are many different plans available. The lowest-cost plan is $15 per month and includes the verified badge, impersonation protection, a dedicated support structure, an enhanced public profile, and what Meta calls “Search optimization” – though this feature is vague and currently in development.

There are also more expensive plans that are more tailored for enterprise-level businesses and small businesses with more than one location – these plans allow for more accounts and more features.

What are the Benefits of the Meta Verified Program?

First off, it’s important to mention that Meta does not make any guarantees that having a verified account necessarily impacts placement within their algorithm. While this mention of “search optimization” mentioned in their materials might suggest otherwise, we don’t really know what exactly this means at this point.

However, despite this, we can reasonably infer that having a verification badge might indirectly affect your placements. Having a badge is an important signal to your users – it signifies trust and authenticity. This may increase engagement with your users – and this may lead to better placement and growth for your channel, but only indirectly.

Another key benefit of Meta Verified is the enhanced security structure for your accounts. We’ve written before about the importance of securing your business’s digital assets. There have been many instances in recent months of official accounts for large businesses and content creators getting hacked.

And small businesses aren’t immune to this – in some ways, the danger is actually greater because you may not have the resources to properly secure your accounts. Meta Verified, with its proactive monitoring and identity protection tools, might make sense for small businesses based on security reasons alone.

Finally, having quick and easy access to Meta Support shouldn’t be overlooked either. Anyone who’s ever had to deal with an issue on their Facebook account knows how awful the base support structure is. It can take days – or even weeks – to get issues resolved.

With a dedicated support network for paid customers, you might see issues resolved a lot more quickly with a Verified subscription.

Limitations and Drawbacks

It’s important to also take a look at the limitations and drawbacks of a Meta Verified subscription.

First, and we can’t stress this enough, there is no guarantee from Meta that your posts or your business will get preferential treatment in the algorithm from having a Verified subscription. This is a benefit that you do get if you go through X’s (formerly Twitter) verified program, but as of right now that benefit does not exist for Meta accounts.

So if you’re looking to Meta Verified to grow your business following and increase engagement, it will not be a good use of your marketing budget. You would be better served using those funds for advertising or boosting posts.

And this leads to the biggest drawback of the subscription program – it will be an ongoing cost within your digital marketing budget. What kind of ROI do you get from having the verified badge versus putting that money into advertising – either on Meta properties or others like Google? Does the peace of mind that comes from the enhanced security or the access to dedicated support change that equation?

Being a part of Meta Verified will have a low, indirect impact on the performance of your social media channels. It will not have the kind of impact that a holistic content strategy will have on your engagement levels – it won’t replace advertising for bringing in qualified leads or increasing brand awareness. So it’s worth thinking very carefully about the ROI and whether your marketing budget would be better served elsewhere.

Who Should Seriously Consider Meta Verified?

• Small businesses that deal with impersonation problems on social networks.
• Brands with a strong online presence that want to further solidify their credibility.
• Brands that rely heavily on social media for engagement.

Who Might Be Better Served Using that Money Elsewhere?

• Small businesses that don’t use their Facebook or Instagram accounts very much.
• Brands looking to increase their follower counts or engagement levels.
• Small businesses looking to improve their impression numbers and interactions with their content.

So, Is Meta Verified Worth It?

The short answer is: for most small businesses, probably not.

The long answer is, like nearly everything else in digital media: it depends. For some small businesses, the enhanced security and access to Meta support alone is worth the cost of the subscription.

But if you need to stretch every dollar of your marketing budget, you’re more likely to see a greater impact putting those dollars into other programs.

Advertising is the best way to bring in high quality leads who are likely to convert. And investing time and energy into your content creation efforts, as well as interacting with your user base on your social channels, is the best way to increase brand awareness.

We are very much interested in the future of this program. The mention of a future “search optimization” benefit is very interesting. It could mean that Meta is potentially looking to favor paying customers in their algorithm like X does. Or it might mean additional front end or back end options for further optimization of profiles for organic search within the networks. Time will tell.

If Meta does end up boosting verified business posts, it may turn out to be much more worth it for small businesses than simply boosting posts manually or advertising. But, for right now, we see Meta Verified more as a “nice to have” than a “must have.”

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