Meta Verified Signals the Start of the Subscription Social Era

Meta Announcement

Last week, Meta announced that it will be rolling out a new pay-to-verify system across Facebook and Instagram, starting in Australia and New Zealand, and none of us should have been surprised.

Adding subscriptions to Meta properties is the next logical step, albeit a major one, in the progression of paid social across every major platform. Linkedin was the first to market with their Linkedin Premium offering that they’ve been pushing for years. The $40/month price tag is significant, but according to reports, almost 50 million people have chosen to pay for tools that promise to help their career and hiring prospects.

Snapchat came along last Summer with their successful Snapchat+ offering, which has well over 2 million customers. Their version costs just $4/month and gives users access to exclusive features like filters and games.

And then there was Twitter Blue. Subscriptions on Twitter have been talked about for a long time, but the rollout has been such a flaming mess that it’s impossible to know what it even is, let alone whether it has achieved its goals. It offers verification, but doesn’t verify who you are. It gives your account a blue checkmark (sometimes), and other features that appear intermittently, like the new Spaces tab, Bookmark folders, and a thread reader. What is Twitter Blue? It seems to be whatever pops into Elon’s head that day.

Meanwhile, Meta has spent the past decade copying new features directly from its competitors. Whether that’s Stories, which is a clone of early Snapchat, or the new Reels interface, which looks identical to TikTok. At the same time, the advertising industry has been in a slump and exploring alternatives to Meta. Without the opportunity to grow its revenue from brands, of course Meta would look to its users.

Here’s what to expect: Meta is going to do a really good job. If we’re being honest, the folks over there have got this feature-copying thing down. They may not be original or innovative, but they know how to incorporate a feature and make it stick.

HERE'S WHAT META VERIFIED WILL INCLUDE:

• Cost: $11.99 USD per account per month if purchased in-browser, $14.99 USD if purchased in-app (to cover app store fees).
• A verified badge, confirming you’re the real you and that your account has been authenticated with a government ID.
• More protection from impersonation with proactive account monitoring for impersonators who might target people with growing online audiences.
• Help when you need it with access to a real person for common account issues.
• Increased visibility and reach with prominence in some areas of the platform, like search, comments, and recommendations.
• Exclusive features to express yourself in unique ways.

They’ll learn from the successes and failures of the other platforms and roll out a version that not only works well, but delivers enough value that people are willing to keep paying for it.

When Meta is successful, we will have officially entered into a new era of social media content, where pay-for-verification is a norm and the business models are no longer 100% ad driven. This will mean that a key metric for the platforms will shift from total views to active users. That may seem like a minor difference, but it's the difference between promoting content the engages and enrages people at all costs, to content that people genuinely enjoy, and want to come back to again and again.

It will also mean that we, as businesses, are going to have to get used to the idea we’ll have social media subscriptions in our budgets from now on.

Will the Subscription Social era create a two-tiered content ecosystem that unfairly benefits those who can afford the subscription fees? Yes. Will it increase the quality and experience on those same platforms for everyone? Also yes.

Right, wrong, or otherwise, this is the era we’re about to enter, so the best thing we can do is pay attention, adjust our strategies, and be open to the fact that these spaces are about to look a lot different than what we've become accustomed to.

Written by Conner Galway, Junction Consulting