Girl Means Business

254: Paying for Views? Instagram's New Meta Verified Test

• Kendra Swalls

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Could your Instagram presence soon come with a price tag? This week I am peeling back the curtain on Instagram's latest experiment – Meta Verified – a program that might just put the success of your Instagram account behind a paywall. It's a controversial move that's sparking debates across the board, and in this episode, we're dissecting every angle. From the implications for creators and business owners who've built their livelihoods on the platform, to the broader consequences for our digital strategies, we're tackling the tough questions about this potential shift towards a monetized tier system. As we navigate this new terrain, I offer insights on how to adapt and stay ahead, even as the social media ground shifts beneath our feet.

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Speaker 1:

Hey there and welcome to the Girl Means Business podcast, the show where we're all about helping you feel confident, both as a mom and a business owner. I'm your host, kendra Swalls, mom of two, former teacher and full-time photographer and business coach. Each week, we'll discuss the challenges, success and secrets that make you say I can do this, because you absolutely can. So pop in those earbuds, grab your favorite snack and let's dive in, because this girl means business. Hey there and welcome back to the Girl Means Business podcast. This week we have some big, breaking Instagram news to share with you. All right, I had to head in some fun breaking news music there for you, okay, so what has happened? Instagram has come out this last week with an announcement that they are running a test a trial, if you will, if you will for a new paid tier meta verified option, and I'm going to break that down what all of that means. But there was no formal, like Adam Masseri did not get on social media and say this is what's happening. There's been no formal like meta you know announcement of this. It's all been quietly sent out behind the scenes, and what I mean by that is that meta has sent out this information to, I guess, a select group of creators and business owners on Instagram, saying that you can opt into this if you would like to. We're running this test here in the United States and anybody can really opt in. Honestly, this was just kind of initially sent out to these larger creators and so, of course, that got people talking because, as they were receiving the information they were getting online, they were talking about it, they were sharing their thoughts on it. Then other people started sharing it and it's just kind of snowballed and it led me to create this episode. Normally, I have all my episodes kind of batched and created and ready to go, and I'm pushing everything back a week because I want to talk about this. I feel like it's something that we need to have a discussion around, and I wanted you to be aware of what could potentially be coming down the pipeline when it comes to paid pay to play options on social media. Okay, so let's talk about what exactly this is versus what it isn't.

Speaker 1:

Now, keep in mind this is a test, so this is not Instagram coming out and saying this is a done deal. This is what we're doing. They are testing this Now. They have tested this previously in Australia, I believe, and it did not work. It failed. So why they're testing United States now? I don't really know, but I guess they're hoping that it will work.

Speaker 1:

We have to keep in mind Meta, instagram, facebook. They are a company. They are a business. Their goal is to make money, and while we have all been able to use these platforms free of charge for a long time now and it's been great for the most part they are still a business and their bottom line is we want to make money. And so we kind of had an idea that this was going to happen at some point, like there was going to be some tipping point where these companies, these social media companies, were going to say like hey, it's time to start like paying to be here Now, for just the average user, you're not probably going to ever have to pay to get onto Instagram and just scroll videos, but if you are wanting to use social media as a place to promote your business, to sell products or services, that is where they are looking to start monetizing, and this is kind of the first step in them heading in that direction is they are testing this out Now, again, I'm going to say this one more time. This is just a test, so there are things that we can do as users to help, hopefully help this to not actually become an actual part of Instagram. So, okay, let's get into it Basically. Instagram has said they are going to start offering four paid tiers as part of the meta verified program.

Speaker 1:

Now, what the meta verified Verified program is is back in the day, you could go onto Instagram and you would see accounts that had this blue check next to their name, and that blue check meant that it was there to let you know that that account had been authenticated. So a lot of times it was reserved for celebrities, large companies, people who had a lot of media exposure and people who had a high chance of being duplicated or having somebody try to create accounts in their likeness, and so having that blue check meant that you knew they were verified. You knew that they were who they said they were. So if you know Jennifer Aniston has an Instagram account with a blue check and then you get a friend request from, or someone starts following you under the name Jennifer Aniston with all the same content but no blue check, you would know that was not actually her. Now there are people who were not celebrities who were getting the blue check based on applying A lot of times it was based on getting the blue check based on applying. A lot of times it was based on media exposure how well known were you and how much exposure do you have in the public? And so there were a lot of athletes, and sometimes even college athletes, who had a lot of public media attention around them and they were getting the blue check. So it was kind of a big deal for a while. It was this thing where, like, if you had a blue check, you were. You were somebody on Instagram.

Speaker 1:

Now, I guess a couple of years ago, maybe two years ago, three years ago, I don't know exactly when they rolled it out, they rolled out the paid meta verified program where you could then pay $15 a month and you would get the blue check and then you were supposed to get like additional support, some chat support, things like that. They never said at any point that having that $15 a month meta verified check was going to get you more exposure. That was never part of their original meta verified plan. Now there were people who were saying that that was part of it. There were people who were on Instagram going well, I have the blue check and I got more exposure, so you should do it too. That was never the case. Instagram meta never said it was never in any of their writing that by having the meta, by paying for the meta verified program, you would get more exposure. So that's what they originally said.

Speaker 1:

Well then last week, or the time of this recording, just a few days ago, they have come out and now said that they are going to expand the MetaVerified paid program to include four payment tiers. So tier one is the $15 a month which has been since the beginning or since they started it. You get the blue check, you get the enhanced profile, which means you can add images and text to your links. I don't know what that exactly would look like. And then they're saying now that if you have the $15 a month tier, you're also going to be, you're going to appear closer to the top in search results. So that means that if somebody goes to Instagram and searches for you know, whatever industry you're in or your area, that hopefully you would come up closer to the top in those searches. You would get to kind of priority in those search results. So kind of that SEO bump in that tier one and that's the new piece they've added. So prior to this new update that was not a part of the $15 a month. It was literally you get the blue check, you get additional support, that's it. So now they've added in the enhanced profile and then the search results priority.

Speaker 1:

Then tier two would be $45 a month. You would also get the same things in tier one, but then you would be considered a featured account. Now they don't actually explain what that means. It just says featured account. So I'm assuming that means maybe you're going to be shown more often on the explore page or maybe you're going to have a little bit more exposure in some way. I'm not really sure, but it's just featured account is the way they're describing it, and then you also get to add two links, or you get to add links to two reels per month. So what that means is if you are promoting something, you can create a reel for it and where in the past you've had to either send people to your bio to click a link or you've had to do like a keyword automation, where that you know, you say like comment, sale, and I'll send you a link to the sale page.

Speaker 1:

Now, if you have this $45 a month tier, you'll be able to add direct links to two of your reels per month. So I'm assuming that means that they'll have like a little link button on your reel that people can click on and it takes them directly to wherever you want to send them. That's tier two. Now tier three is $120 a month. It's the same as tier one and two, except that you get four links in your reels per month. So instead of two you get four. So you could do one a week. And it does say you get more exposure. Now what that actually means, it does not clarify. So that could mean maybe you're getting pushed out to more accounts, maybe you're getting put on the explore page, maybe they're going to have some new featured account, you know section. I don't know. And then here's the kicker. Tier four is $350 a month. You get eight links in your reels per month and you get an annual profile review, I'm assuming by somebody at Meta. So for $350 a month you would become, you know, a featured account. You would get to add these links to your reels. You would have an enhanced profile. You get the extra support supposedly, which I know a lot of people have said they don't actually get extra support as of now. But we'll see. And then you would. Supposedly again I'm putting all this in air quotes because nobody has actually tested this that I'm aware of and seen results from it because it's so new you would supposedly get a better exposure, more exposure, more reach from your content, because you would be pushed out more by meta, because you're now paying for that exposure. So it's essentially, instead of paying I mean, you could still pay for ads, but it's like paying for ads but your account and everything you create is the ad. So I don't know. It's very interesting.

Speaker 1:

There are a lot, a lot of people who are coming out and saying we don't want this, we don't like this. I agree, I do not like this. Um, I do believe that this is one of those moments where, similar to I've talked about this in the past when the NFL this last year, this last season, they had one game of the regular NFL season that was on the Peacock streaming platform. The only way you could watch it was on Peacock and people were in an uproar. They were like this is dumb, we're not going to do that. I'm not going to pay to watch a football game that should be on national television for free. People ran their mouths. They were like this is not going to, we don't want this. And yet, for free. People ran their mouths. They were like this is not going to, we don't want this. And yet the numbers showed that people still paid to watch it. In fact, more people paid to watch that game than watched a typical Sunday night football game when it's free, on whatever station. So I say that to say that there are a lot of people saying that they don't want this. However, when it comes down to actually this rolling out, we'll see who actually pays for it, because, in the end, people are really trying to grow their business on Instagram and this is going to hopefully supposedly help them do that.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so here's my take on this. I believe that it is still in the test phase. I have maybe naively, my suspicions and hopes that it will not actually move beyond the test phase. I have a feeling that the same thing that happened in Australia is going to happen here, where people come at them saying this is not what we want, we're not going to do this, I don't want this, we're going to have a lot of backlash for it and it will just kind of quietly go away. Now, I could be wrong. I hope I'm not, but I could be.

Speaker 1:

In the event that this does become something, then we have a decision to make. We as business owners, we as creators, have to decide. Are we willing to pay these anywhere from 15 to $300 a month to get this exposure, or are we going to start looking for other ways to grow our business? And so this is where I feel like it's a good time for us to really start thinking about okay, what are we doing in our business right now? Are we relying solely on social media? Am I putting all of my eggs in one basket? Because again, I've said this time and time again with social media, we don't own these platforms. We don't have control. So if Instagram or Meta wants to come up and say you owe me a thousand dollars a month to even get your content noticed, we either have to pay up or get out. Like that's just how it is. Like there's a lot of people online right now who are complaining and they're frustrated and I totally understand and they're like how can they do this to us? Like this is. This is ridiculous. Like we're already struggling to get engagement and reach, and now they're going to make us pay for it. Guys, we don't have that control. It's like walking into Target and being mad because they raised the price of their items in their store. Like nobody's doing that. Nobody is coming for Target because they're like, oh, they raised their price of their towels from $12 to $15. Like, we just kind of roll with it. It is what it is. It's a company decision. That's exactly what Meta is. We have taken this ownership of it when we really don't have ownership of it, and so, in my opinion, take that information and go.

Speaker 1:

Okay, if I'm putting too many of my eggs in the social media basket, it is time to take some of those eggs out and move them somewhere else. So what else do you do? Well, my number one answer to that is email. I want you to be growing an email list. You need to be growing an email list Even if this never rolls out, even if Instagram stays exactly as it is now, even if Instagram's reach or engagement goes through the roof and you start having major success. You need to be building out your email list because at any point that could all change when social media was at its peak, you know, during COVID days, when everybody was home and everybody was had time to be online and on social media and accounts were growing like crazy and reels had first come out. Even then, there were accounts that were getting shut down. There were accounts that were losing their content because they were getting hacked or they violated some kind of community standard, and Instagram shut them down. And so we have to be prepared for that to happen at any moment. We have to be prepared for Instagram to come up and say we're going to change the game on you and you have no control over it.

Speaker 1:

If you are building an email list and you are sending people from your social media account from other places to your email, even if Instagram goes away tomorrow, even if your Facebook group gets shut down, even if there's a major meta outage and everybody's accounts get wiped out, you have a way to reach your audience because they're on your email list. So your email list needs to be the thing that you are adding into your marketing toolbox right now, if you don't already have one. And I'm not trying to be like the scare tactic type thing here, but ultimately, like there are so many pieces and I have done episodes after episodes about the importance of email and the value of email. But beyond just it being a safety net for your business, it is one of the best ways to get consistent sales in your business. So if you are listening to this and you're like, yes, I hear you, I need to start an email list, but I don't know what I'm doing or I don't have a whole lot of time, go down to the show notes. Grab my free email marketing starter kit. I actually even have a email marketing training video that you can purchase for really cheap less than $10. You can watch that video. It's about 45 minutes to an hour long. It goes into detail about what you need to do to get your email list going and you can have it set up in a matter of hours. It's that simple. And then I teach you in there too, like how to get people onto your email list, how to grow your email list, all the things. But if nothing else, that's the thing I want you to focus on.

Speaker 1:

If this new Instagram update, if anything I've ever taught you in this podcast about social media sticks with you, I hope it's this that we cannot rely on social media 100%. We have to have a backup plan. We have to have something else in place, and email is one of the best ways to go about that. Some other things you can consider is, obviously there's other platforms out there. You know, there's YouTube, there's, I say, tiktok. We don't know the future of TikTok, but there's TikTok. There is Pinterest, there's LinkedIn. There's a lot of other options out there if you want to start diversifying the platforms that you are on. Again, those all come with their own set of rules and standards and how to use them, and, again, they're all social platforms of some kind, so we have limited control. But it is good to kind of know, kind of diversify where you're spending your time and where you're putting your content, and then you can also invest a lot more into your SEO. So if you are a you know, someone who wants to get your business found on Google and local searches, then putting some time and energy into building up that SEO is a really great way to kind of give yourself a little bit more security when it comes to how your audience can find you. And I also want to say that with this change or with this, you know new, you know future of social media that could potentially be even without that.

Speaker 1:

Honestly, people are getting really tired of social media. They are starting to feel the burnout, and even as just consumers. I was having a meeting last night with our local PTO. I'm, reluctantly now, the president of our school's PTO for the next year, which should be a lot of fun, but we were having our last meeting of the year and we were kind of talking about changes we want to make going forward for next year and how we can get more people involved and how we can get more information out there. And we do have a communications member on the board which is primarily a social media manager, and I said I think we need to expand beyond social media, because there are so many people in our community who don't rely on social media on a regular basis. They don't get on social media on a regular basis, and so for us to depend on getting our information out there via social media almost solely is not going to help ensure that we reach more people. We have to get creative, we have to find other ways, and the same thing goes for our businesses is people don't want to be spending all their time on social media anymore, and especially if things like these changes are going to keep coming, you're going to start to see people falling off a little bit more and more. So having these other strategies in place is going to help you ensure that you don't feel like your business is crumbling if social media makes a change or goes away or isn't doing what you want it to do. So that is that for today's episode.

Speaker 1:

One more quick update I want to give. I put this out on Instagram, oddly enough, and Facebook, but there's a cool new feature that my podcast platform, buzzsprout shout out to Buzzsprout, they're awesome has added to my account, or to all the accounts, and that is this really cool text feature. So if you go down to the show notes, you will see at the right, at the very top of the show notes, there's a little button that says send me a message or send me a question, or, you know, give. I think it says send me a question or feedback. You can click on that. It will open up a text message where you can then send me a message with a question. You have a thought, you have an idea that you have feedback, you have for the show, and then it gets sent directly into my Buzzsprout account.

Speaker 1:

And so the cool thing about that is it's a way for you to, within the moment, if you're listening to this episode and you have thoughts or questions about this topic, about Instagram's update and changes, you don't have to hop over to social media and message me. You can do it right here within the podcast platform that you're on. So I would love for you to click that. Just send me a message, even if you just say hi in it. That'll make my day, so I would love for you to try that out for me and let me know your thoughts on this new update from Meta. All right, guys, have a wonderful week. I will see you back here next week. Same time, same place. Thank you so much for tuning in this week. If you enjoyed this episode, I would love for you to take a screenshot, share it to social media and don't forget to tag. Girl means business and, as always, we greatly appreciate any reviews you leave for this podcast. Thank you so much for being here and we'll see you next week.

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Kendra Swalls

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