The blue verification badge on Facebook and Instagram is now available in Mexico after a few months of speculation, following the idea of Elon Musk and Twitter. The badge costs $230 MXN per month for each medium such as IG or Facebook.
So far there is not particularly something new from what we already knew before. What is interesting to me is to ask if that badget it will work or not, to know if it is good or bad, or where all this is going. And as I always say: everything depends on the eye with which you look at it.
In the first instance, I think it is something beneficial for personal brands and some personal profiles that can be distinguished. It will be necessary to wait for it to be enabled for all companies in general and, of course, it will be necessary to measure whether they acquire their blue tick. On that side, I would also consider that there would be many more brands that would seek verification on both Facebook and Instagram. At least more than on Twitter, I assure it almost 1000%. Will it serve to generate more sales or leads at this level? I still don’t know, and precisely that may be the biggest question mark about it.
And it is that, until now, the blue dove includes some “basic” features such as special stickers or greater security. But neither is it like ensuring a better placement of advertising and/or special formats so that companies can advertise. In this sense, I think the question continues.
Now, knowing Mark Zuckerberg and the Meta team from my own experience being an advertiser and managing brands of all kinds on this platform, I think it will be a seed towards exclusive features on that social network. Precisely I believe that the time will come in the next few years where we will practically be forced to pay verification to have a little organic reach. I say a little because we all know that impressions practically do not exist if you do not pay. And I think that everything will change towards there: it will be necessary to first pay your monthly subscription to access certain elements that will distinguish advertisers who do not have their badge.
Again, this is neither good nor bad. And it is that when I have had to work with SMEs, they appeal to a sense of “free” in social networks. They seek to optimize resources, of course, creating impacts and organic content. But what I always tell them is: this is really costing you. And if you want to generate sales or potential customers, you need to invest in paid advertising, in creating content, in training, in spending time recording your videos and/or investing in a professional or an agency that takes their networks or campaigns to Google, for example. . In short: all digital strategies are free actions “per se”.
Where I do believe that there will be “little movement” will be with the biggest brands, who already have their logo. Unless those of Meta invent one, such as for the media or political figures, as is currently done on Twitter. But still, it will have to wait a while.
However, the fact that this function has been enabled in Mexico also brings a very strong intercept: our country is one of the strongest bastions for the Meta complex. It is not for nothing that it is one of the markets with the largest number of users in the world, as we are in the Top 5 in the world with more than 93 million monthly active users, only surpassed by Brazil, with 130 million. In the case of Instagram, our country is in 7th place worldwide, with 36 million, surpassed by Japan.
If we do the math, it becomes the largest Spanish-speaking market in the world. That is why Meta also comes for badge subscriptions, without hesitation.
Calculating and/or measuring the impact is still idle. We will have to wait a few months to know official figures. And measure how much impact it has had at the level of brands and users in our country.
Meanwhile to wait. But the question now that piques my real interest is… would you pay $14.9 USD to verify your Instagram account?
I read you.