Facebook’s parent company, Meta Platforms Inc., is finalizing a paid service called Meta Verified that will include a number of additional benefits and features, including account verification stamps for payers in the style of what Twitter already does after being acquired by the tycoon Elon Musk. The new subscription, which will start testing first in Australia and New Zealand starting next week, will cost $11.99 per month (11.18 euros) or $14.99 (13.98 euros) if purchased through the iOS app and is primarily aimed at content creators.
In addition to a verification badge, the subscription includes “proactive account protection, access to account support, and greater visibility and reach,” a Meta spokesperson explained in a statement collected by Bloomberg. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the new product via his Instagram channel. The option will be available on both Facebook and Instagram, but they will be separate subscriptions.
Subscription offers have become popular for social media companies in recent years as a way to diversify their businesses, which are heavily dependent on advertising. So, for example, Snap Inc. has an offer called Snapchat Plus, and Twitter Inc. is also pushing a subscription offer right now, with account verification being a major selling point.
affected by the pandemic
Meta gets almost all of its revenue from advertising, but that business can be quite fickle and hit hard by the broader economy. Meta’s business was hit hard at the start of the pandemic, for example, and again last year during the war in Europe and rising inflation. Subscriptions offer a more consistent revenue stream.
However, it is not clear whether users want to pay for services that have always been free. Twitter’s subscription offering has been slow to take off. In this case, the most valuable aspect of the Meta subscription package is shaping up to be increased “visibility”, since standing out on Facebook or Instagram is more difficult these days, even among a user’s own followers.
Higher visibility would mean greater “prominence in some areas of the platform, such as search, comments, and recommendations,” according to the company. Also, unlike Twitter, which does not verify a user’s identity through subscription, Meta will require users to confirm their identity with a government ID in order to receive a verification badge.