Intro: Do you feel like you were meant to have a kick-ass career as a hair stylist? Like you got into this industry to make big things happen?
Maybe you’re struggling to build a solid base and want some stability. Maybe you know social media is important, but it feels like a waste of time because you aren’t seeing any results. Maybe you’ve already had some amazing success but are craving more. Maybe you’re ready to truly enjoy the freedom and flexibility this industry has to offer.
Cutting and coloring skills will only get you so far, but to build a lifelong career as a wealthy stylist, it takes business skills and a serious marketing strategy. When you’re ready to quit just working in your business and start working on it, join us here where we share real success stories from real stylists.
I’m Britt Seva, social media and marketing strategist just for hair stylists, and this is the Thriving Stylist Podcast.
Britt Seva: Well, hello, hello, my beautiful podcast listeners! No, that’s not my usual intro. I am recording this little snippet just a couple of days before this podcast goes live. This podcast was originally recorded a couple weeks ago, but of course everything on the social media streets changes really fast, so I wanted to give you a bit of a real-time update.
So about 11 minutes into this podcast, I mention shifts to reach. Reach is how many people see your post, like your post, engage on your post, how often you make it into the feed. Well, you’ll hear my opinion on the reach feature that was included with Meta Verified. I wasn’t the only one who had that opinion, and hundreds of thousands of other business coaches and creators spoke out about flaws in the Meta Verified program.
Just three days before this update was recorded, Adam [NAME], who is the face and voice of Meta, Instagram, all of these things, publicly said that they think they did get some parts of this Meta Verified program wrong—no surprise there—and that they’re actually rolling back the reach portion that was once included in Meta Verified.
Now, that doesn’t mean that it won’t come back, but there is so much anger and outrage about this new Meta Verified program that they have decided to slow down on the rollout.
This should not be a relief to anybody. This should be even more of a red flag that shows they are a flailing, failing platform and they do not know what they are doing.
I wanted to give that little bit of an update before we dive into the episode. When I mention that there will be increased reach as part of what is included in the badge verification, my opinions on that, what it would do to the platform, know that all those things still stand, but at this time, Meta and Instagram have rolled that back and choosing to get verified with the badge does not include increased reach at this time.
Happy listening!
What is up and welcome back to the Thriving Stylist Podcast. I’m your host, Britt Seva, and today we’re talking all about those blue checks on Instagram. We’re talking about the new Instagram verification program. It’s actually Meta’s program, but we’ll get into that. I’m going to call it Instagram’s program for now at the top of this episode to keep things simple, but we are going to talk about how this impacts Instagram, Facebook, you, how this could impact your business, what you need to do, what you shouldn’t do. We’re going to dig into all of that stuff.
I will say this is going to be a bit of a two-parter. There is a lot going on in the world of social media right now and I want to prepare you for all of it. This week we’re going to strictly talk about blue checks, Instagram verification, what this means for Facebook, all these kind of things.
Next week we’re going to talk about social media at large. All the platforms, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Google Business, Yelp. We’re going to talk about everything, where they’re headed, what’s going on, and what you need to know.
Let’s start at the beginning, which the beginning of this little two-parter is what’s the deal with the new Instagram verified program? So what do I mean when I say Instagram verified? Some of you know exactly what I’m talking about, which high five to you. If you don’t know, if you’ve ever been on Instagram and you see somebody with the blue badge, we call it getting a blue check, but it’s the little blue circle that lives next to their handle on Instagram.
Generally when I talk about that, you think to yourself like, “Oh, those are famous people, right?” Which most famous people do have that blue check. Oh, those are famous people or very, very well known influencers. We think to ourselves like, “Okay, if you get to be a big enough deal, you get a blue check.” It’s actually not how it works. If anybody listening to this has ever applied for verification, most of you likely have been declined. I’ve certainly been declined and for a long time, I couldn’t quite figure out why I was being declined because I knew I had built a very legitimate business. I was well known to a degree, like I had a good amount of followers and I wasn’t sure what the deal was.
For many years, I actually had some friends who had a hundred, 150, 200,000 Instagram followers and they couldn’t get verified, and so there was a lot of conversations in a lot of different rooms I was in of “What is up with this Instagram verification? How does a person get verified?”
Then it was probably around 2018 when suddenly a lot of my peers got verified and it was like for years they had tried to and they couldn’t. In 2018, 2019, when I saw a lot of my peers get verified, we knew, we’re like, “Oh, something’s changed in the criteria.”
Well, I know exactly what it is that changed and I’m going to spill that with you and talk about what verification looked like in years past.
Leading up until 2023, from 2019 up until 2023, the way that somebody would get that blue check on Instagram—although Instagram never publicly said this, I know from talking to enough people—what they’ve been looking for for the past few years is a very specific set of criteria and it has nothing to do with follower count. That’s why you’ll see some people who have the blue check but only have 5,000 followers and some people with half a million followers who don’t have the blue check. It actually has very little to do with follower count.
What it had to do with was essentially publicity. So if you were able to get on the Today Show, you could get a blue check. If you were on a primetime TV show, blue check, no problem. If you were featured in Entrepreneur magazine, Forbes enough times, things like that would earn you the blue check.
So how does a person get featured in Forbes? How does a person get featured in Entrepreneur? How does a person get on the Today Show? We think to ourselves like, “Well, very accomplished people get there.” Kind of. But the people I know who have been featured in those magazines and on those TV shows have hired publicists. Publicists are well-networked, and those well-networked publicists are able to get those opportunities for those people.
Now, that’s not to say everybody verified paid for a publicist. No, some didn’t. Some were approached by Forbes, let’s say, and Forbes was like, “Hey, I love what you’re up to. Can we write an article about you?” That does happen. Absolutely. It represents the minority of opportunities, but it does happen.
So while Instagram never said it on the backend, when they said blue checks mean notoriety, that’s what they actually meant. It didn’t mean how big your business was, it didn’t mean how many followers you have. They were looking for mainstream press, period, up until this point.
In early 2023, February 19, 2023, to be exact, Facebook, Meta—do y’all know that? Meta is the parent company of Facebook and Instagram. Instagram and Facebook are owned by the same umbrella company. They’re different divisions of the same company. Does everybody know that?
That company is now called Meta. Mark Zuckerberg is the CEO of Meta to connect all the dots for you, and he has a couple subdivisions. There’s WhatsApp, there’s Facebook, Instagram, right?
This is a direct quote from what they said with the launch: “We’re testing Meta Verified, a new subscription bundle that includes account verification with impersonation protections and access to increased visibility and support. We want to make it easier for creators to establish a presence so they can focus on building their communities on Instagram and Facebook.” Doesn’t that sound lovely? Oh my gosh, they actually care. They want to make it easier for creators. What a gift.
It’s like a gift that comes with a slap in the face because it’s not actually a gift. When Meta says “we have created this to help creators establish their presence,” I’m going to keep it 100 with you. That’s not why they created this. They created this because revenue for Meta is down significantly. Companies such as mine stopped spending money on Instagram ads, Facebook ads at scale way back in 2020 when iOS 14 hit iPhones. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, don’t worry about it too much. I’m going to simplify this in a moment. But there was a huge change that happened to the potential of Facebook ads and Instagram ads in 2020 when Apple released a new version of its software. Many of you will remember this. One of the things that came when you updated your phone to this new update is it says, “Do you want social apps to be able to track your data?” The majority of users said no. You probably said no. You said F that, I don’t want these companies tracking me anymore.
Well, what happened is advertisers like myself were like, “Okay, cool. If we can’t get the data, we’re not going to spend the money on ads.” So we don’t. Well, here’s the repercussion of that choice that nobody saw coming: Facebook and Instagram is for profit, so they want to make their money one way or another. Because users opted out of having their data tracked, which understandable, I totally understand why that choice was made. Advertisers stopped investing, Instagram and Facebook’s profit took a hit. They need to create that money elsewhere.
So what they did is they said who is the most—in my opinion. The Thriving Stylist Podcast is all my opinion. You should know that. And in my opinion, Instagram said, you know who relies most heavily on social media platforms? The creator economy.
There’s no doubt about it. We have to understand, if you don’t know, now you know, the influencer market crashed in 2020. I don’t think it will ever come back. So when people say, “I want to be an influencer,” to me, it’s now today in 2023, it’s somebody saying, “I want to be unemployed,” because the influencers aren’t making the money that they were a time ago.
I saw a statistic recently, somebody who was truly an influencer. I think she was a fashion blogger, it might have been makeup, but fashion blogger, said her income is down 80% since 2020 and it’s simply because brands aren’t investing in the creator influencer economy any longer because brands don’t have the money that they used to inflation, right? Cost of employees and all these things are going up and B, they know that these influencers and creators don’t have the reach that they used to.
So companies like Meta see almost this soft spot, weak point of “Oh, the creator market is hurting, so what can we do to help them out?” Well, here’s what they came up with. If you participate in this program, what you’ll get is verification, the blue badge. You’ll get that blue check that everybody for years was dying to have. They said this will help your community know it’s the real you with a verified badge.
If anybody’s ever gotten a copycat before, it’s very annoying. The blue badge helps with that.
Here’s the catch. To get the blue badge, all you have to do is share a government ID to securely establish your account’s authenticity.
Now that’s not new, that was always there, forever and ever. If you wanted to get verified, you had to upload an ID to Instagram or Facebook, could have been a passport, driver’s license, those kind of things will count. That’s not new, but remember that cause I’m going to come back to it.
You also get proactive account protection, meaning protection from impersonation with proactive account monitoring and secure your account with required two factor authentication.
Just so you know, we all get that for free , it’s not really a bonus, but okay, we have that listed there.
Exclusive features. Get exclusive stickers on Facebook and Instagram stories and Facebook reels and 100 stars a month on Facebook so you can show support for other creators.
I’m sorry, 100 stars a month? First of all these stars have not rolled out yet, but I’m somebody who talks a lot about perceived value. Don’t try and throw a hundred Facebook stars in my face. I don’t even know what you’re talking about. And the last thing I want to do is like, ooh, learn a new Facebook feature right now. Cool, you have Facebook stars. What the heck does that even mean?
Okay, that’s one of the things you get and new stickers, which apparently they think has a ton of value. I’m not sure on that one, but sure, free stickers and stars, whatever that means.
Direct account support. Get help when you need it from a real person on common account issues that matter to you. Now I will say there’s value in that. If you have ever tried to reach out to Instagram or Facebook for support, I am fairly certain that you send a message to Meta and it just goes straight to a garbage can because nobody ever responds. It is like messaging a void and that’s frustrating. Direct account support in theory sounds great. Not sure how they’re going to pull it off, but great in theory.
And then lastly, increased visibility and this is the kicker. This is where you need to pay attention, expand your reach with increased visibility and prominence in some parts. In some parts. In some parts. They say that immediately. In some parts of Instagram and Facebook like comments, search, and recommendations. What it sounds like is the increased reach, what does it mean? Increased reach in comments, like what is that? And then in search and recommendations, so I assume you’re going to show up more on the explore page, the for you page, you might be showcased more in the feed. I don’t know though, it’s very ambiguous. We’re not a hundred percent sure exactly what that means.
If you choose to get started with this process, there is a fee. If you pay $14.99 a month, you can get Instagram verified. If you pay $11.99 a month, it’s Facebook verified.
Now the way they explained this in the beginning was that $11.99 a month was on the web. They said that if you were to get verified on mobile, it was like $5 more a month. A lot of people were like, “So can I just get verified on my desktop then since it’s cheaper?” There’s now, I didn’t notice this before but it’s there now. It says $11.99 a month is for Facebook verification only. As I read the fine details and I went into the FAQs, one of the questions was “Can I use one Meta Verified subscription on both Instagram and Facebook?” The answer to that is no. To use Meta Verified on both Instagram and Facebook, you must subscribe on each app separately.
Note that. That was not publicly explained when the first announcement went out. To get verified on both Instagram and Facebook, you have to pay both charges. So you’re not paying $14.99 and $11.99. You’re paying a total of $26 a month.
You have to make sure that you’re down for that because that’s the cost to be verified on both. And apparently if you verify on Facebook, you get a hundred Facebook stars, which who the heck knows what that means. But what they’re trying to do is to get users to pay to play on social media.
Something that you need to note is that when Facebook first launched, way back when, 15 years ago or whenever that was that it started, there was a tagline on its website. It said “Facebook: free and always will be.” They very quietly removed that tagline from the website in 2019 and now in 2023, they have created a pay-to-pay app and they did it very sneakily and a lot of people who saw that verification was coming got excited.
For me, this is an indicator of a rapidly declining social media platform. We’re going to talk about this more next week. I knew that Instagram was not doing well. I think its lifespan has now been cut in half.
I don’t think this will work. I think it was a very reckless decision. A huge piece of me hopes that will be shut down before it gets rolled out. But I also almost think the writing is on the wall. Let’s say they shut this down, they’re still going to look for another way to make money.
For those of you who are like, “Oh, f that, I’m not going to be paying for that,” okay, well when you don’t pay for it, are you cool to to not get the reach anymore ‘cause those who pay for it are going to get increased visibility. Instagram and Facebook both openly said that. We don’t know how much or what exactly that’s going to look like, but in order to break into the feeds is what it looks like to get that increased visibility, you have to pay.
Those who don’t pay are immediately going to be hindered because in order for Instagram and Facebook to make room in the algorithm, to make room in the feeds for this promised visibility, they’re giving the paid users who are, P.S., going to be pissed if they’re not getting what they paid for in order to pull off that promise, non-payers’ reach has to be reduced. There’s literally no other way to do it. They can’t increase user attention span. The only way to give more visibility to those who pay is reduce the visibility to those who don’t.
Now here’s the other thing: businesses can’t apply for verification. If you are set up as a for business account on Instagram, you’re not eligible. The only way to be eligible for this verification is to choose to be a creator.
Let’s say you do that. I choose to be creator, I’m going to pay the $14 a month, the $26, $27 a month, whatever you choose to buy in and pay. I don’t think you’re going to get the result you’re looking for because now the secret’s out. Users who go on Instagram are now going to be force-fed content of whomever was willing to cut the check to Instagram and Facebook to force into the feed.
It’s so weird to me that they made this choice when the biggest complaint for Instagram users is I’m so sick of seeing forced content, I want to see the content of people I choose to follow. Instagram’s like, cool, well, let’s double down on not giving you the content you want to see. Let’s give you the content of those who are willing to cut us a check every month and let that be the system.
What I think will happen is millions of people are going to choose to pay for this because they’re handcuffed. They have no choice. If you don’t pay, you’re not going to break into the algorithm, so that sucks. Then you cut the check and you pay. But what happens is those who are using the platform are going to be really disappointed with the content that’s being served up to them because they’re going to feel like they’re being constantly sold to by creators, so user interest in the platform is innately going to decrease because why would I go on a platform where I know—it’s not even a secret, it is plastered all over the internet that who I’m going to be seeing is people who are cutting the check.
The only person who wins in this, make no mistake about it, is Meta. They are the only winner. Creators are not getting a leg up the way that they’re promising that they are. Users are not getting any sort of advantage because they’re again not going to be happy with the user experience. The only winner is Meta.
I just looked it up and currently it’s being reported that there are about 500,000, so half a million active creator accounts on Instagram or active influencers on Instagram. Okay, half a million. That’s a lot. So if you’re like, “Well, I’m a creator, this will benefit me ‘cause it’ll just be me standing out in a market,” well, it’s you and half a million others, so be really careful about that.
When I say you’re one in a million, now you’re one in half a million, so be really careful about that.
I’m having a hard time seeing where this is an advantage. But let’s say that only 20% of those who are creators or influencers choose to pay. I think that’s a huge underinvestment. I think more will, but if only 20% choose to take advantage, Instagram is now getting 1.5 million a month from users on the platform. Users. An app that for years was completely free to use, now if only 20% of creators choose to subscribe to this subscription, which I think is a vast underestimate, I think a lot more will be forced to do it, it will impact Instagram/Meta’s bottom line by almost 18 million dollars. An app that used to be free and now we the users are paying $18 million a year. That is such a low underestimate of what the investment will be.
If all influencers and creators choose to pay for this subscription, Meta will profit $89 million just from that subscription in a year on an app that used to be free.
The reason I felt really passionate about sharing this with you all is I think the way the verification package has been positioned is it sounds enticing for some of you. For some of you, it doesn’t sound enticing, it feels annoying, but you’re like, “Well, I’m just going to have to pay it. I have to bite the bullet.” I think you’re between a rock and a hard place. I think that for a lot of us, yeah, we will have to pay it. We’ll have no choice. I might be included in that. I might have to pay it simply to stay relevant on the very short time span and lifespan that Instagram and Facebook have left.
I don’t think it’s going to last much longer. When you look at apps like MySpace, you look at Tumblr, are those apps still there? Yes. But when’s the last time you logged into MySpace? When’s the last time you went onto Tumblr? How are you using AOL Instant Messenger to grow your business today? Social media platforms die all the time.
Our industry relied so deeply and so heavily on Instagram. How many of you have been following me since I started coaching in 2015 and for how long did I say “Be careful. Don’t put all your eggs in any one’s social media basket because the day will come where every platform will become irrelevant.” And now what’s your plan?
Y’all we’re on the horizon now. Instagram and Facebook are both becoming pay-to-play. That is not what social media was meant to be used for. Users are going to get exhausted by it. Creators are going to get exhausted by it. The only person who’s going to win temporarily is Mark Zuckerberg and the team at Meta.
The reason why I share this is I want you to understand in full what this verification program means. It’s not something you can just opt into or out of and have peace of mind. This will change the landscape of Instagram forever. Make no mistake about it.
Now this is currently being beta-tested in Australia and New Zealand. There is of course a chance it won’t come to the US. I personally think—and I truly hope I’m wrong, like I truly hope I have to eat my words on this—it’s coming because I know that Meta needs the money.
A lot of the other things that they tried have flopped. Do you remember when they rolled out, it was true end of 2022, subscriptions? They’re still out. Creators can include subscription services on Instagram where Instagram users pay to be subscribers and they get badges and premium content. Did anybody watch the comment section of anybody who turned on subscriptions and the way that creators got eaten alive? Instagram, Facebook, TikTok. These platforms were established as a way where creators could share content for free and create interest and excitement about their products and about their offers for free, with free reach.
That’s all dying in real time.
The influencer, the creator economy is on very shaky ground. You’ve been notified. Be on high alert.
If you were hoping to listen to this to hear me say whether or not you should do the verification, honestly, I don’t know. I don’t know what’s going to be smarter or not.
If you have a for business account, you’re not even going to be eligible. If you’re a creator, can you stay relevant not paying? I don’t know. Will paying actually help to boost your business? I tend to think not, but I tend to think you’re just going to have to suck it up and pay the money to keep the same amount of relevance you have now. That’s what makes it pay-to-play is you’re handcuffed. You have no choice and you are now a part of the machine, right? This is why embracing social media in every season that it’s in is so critical. It’s why you can’t say, I’m going to get a handle on Instagram in a couple of years when I have more time. The ship has sailed.
It will be harder than ever before to grow on social media. It doesn’t mean it’s not possible and it doesn’t mean I want you to stop trying. The tools are still here now. What I’m saying is the train left the station, you are hanging onto the back of it for dear life, grip hard, and figure out how to use these platforms to their maximum potential in the time that you have left.
I as your business coach am happy to help you do that every step of the way. I want you to just stay curious about Meta Verified.
I’ll be fully candid. There is a huge chance I’m going to feel handcuffed and have to invest in it. I will let you know what I decide to do. You’ll see that little blue badge pop up if I decide to go there. Just know if I decide to do it, it’s not because I think it’s such a great program and I’m all about it. It’s ‘cause I might feel like I don’t have a choice and I want you just to know the repercussions of choosing that little blue check mark as it stands today.
This was a thought-provoking one. If you have any questions, please leave me a rating or review on iTunes. I’m coming back to you next week with more social media content and as I always like to say, so much love, happy business building, and I’ll see you on the next one.
