Hey, If you ever needed proof that I'm not in Mark Zuckerberg's inner circle, this week's announcement that Meta will now sell blue ticks to the hoi polloi is surely it. He even dangled "visibility" and "reach" as one of the benefits – completely undermining my lengthy treatise last week on how organic reach is not dead. Or did it? *dramatic music* Let's take a look. Meta Verified Is ComingIn case you missed the news, Facebook's parent company Meta – still a stupid name BTW – is launching a new paid subscription program, borrowing yet another idea from its competitors. Meta Verified is not too dissimilar to those launched at Snap last June and Twitter last December, but this time framed as making it "easier for creators to establish a presence on Facebook and Instagram." The call-out to creators in the announcement might have caught authors attention, but I suspect Facebook is defining that in the widest possible sense. And it's hard not to see it as a way of softly launching something in a friendlier way rather than something specifically designed to help creators. The cost of this program will be more expensive than Twitter's much-derided subscription package, which Facebook has pegged at USD$11.99 a month, or USD$14.99 a month if you sign up by mobile. Despite the US pricing in the announcement, however, Meta Verified will launch initially in Australia and New Zealand only. This softer launch has some other differences to Elon Musk's approach. Zuckerberg is dodging at least some of the controversy here by saying that those who were verified under the old system won't lose their precious blue tick. So, what do you get for that rather hefty monthly fee, aside from being welcomed into the inner sanctum that really runs the world? Let's take a look, after a quick word from our sponsor. February Sponsor: ReedsyIn partnership with Reedsy. The best translation services for indie authors Did you know Germany is the fastest-growing eBook market in Europe, and countries like France, Spain, and Italy have seen triple digit growth in ebook adoption in recent years? If you're an indie author looking to make their mark abroad, there's no better time than now. At Reedsy, you'll find trusted literary translation services from vetted translators who have worked with the biggest names in publishing such as Lee Child, Gillian Flynn and George R.R Martin. Not only will these professionals take care of translation for you, but they'll also edit, proofread and help with metadata & marketing materials so your translated edition is ready to launch into exciting new markets! Meta Verified With BenefitsOK, it's me again. And there's no chance of me playing this with a straight bat. The kindest thing I can say is that it's a pretty thin package, but before I stick the boot in, here is the list of benefits from Meta's official announcement. I'm quoting here BTW. · 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. Let's take those in turn. 1: A Verified BadgeThis is Facebook's name for the blue tick you see after my name on Facebook. Previously, Facebook gave these "verified badges" away for free… if a profile or Page met certain requirements. One of those requirements was "notability" – I'm literally waving at you from a dais BTW. As an Officially Approved Notable Person, I've been through the legacy verification process at both Twitter and Facebook, and they both – a few years ago, at least – asked for similar things: various forms of ID, links to media appearances, your website, and so on. And when it came to Facebook in particular, it reportedly assessed your application alongside things like your reach on the platform and elsewhere, Google search volume on your name, how engaging your content was, your posting history, etc. My memory is hazy at this distance, but I think I might have half-assed it the first time around and gotten rejected, and then filled out the application form a little more seriously the second time, adding links to various media mentions, and got the verification email soon after. I'm pretty sure the blue tick was delivered by chopper, but it's hard to remember if that was Facebook or Twitter, after quaffing so much champagne in the hot tub. I know the blue tick is coveted by some people so I'll try and be serious for a moment. I guess it looks kind of cool, maybe, but it can be a bit weird as well – and attract some less pleasant attention from scammers. I suppose there is some value in terms of brand authority or something very slippery like that, but it's not the magic fairy dust people seem to think. I don't necessarily think it has a measurable impact on ad performance, for example, and I'm dubious that it helps sell novels at all. Perhaps it adds some authority for certain types of non-fiction but I don't place much value in that personally. At best, someone with a blue tick might scoop up a few extra Likes as you can be more visible in Search – but who uses Search on Facebook? You also pop in comments more in a visual sense because of the blue tick, but that can be a bit weird sometimes as well – and attract some unwelcome attention. Put it this way: if you are only attracted to this idea to get the blue tick, don't waste your money. I wouldn't pay anything for it. (I'm not going to pay for it on Twitter either – where I'm being unceremoniously stripped of my precious blue tick.) The only real benefit from a blue tick is to prevent people impersonating you – essential for celebrities and politicians, I guess, although this can be an issue for smaller fry like you and me too. (Indeed, this encouraged me to seek verification a few years ago after tangling with some nasty scammers). Any value as a kind of "notability indicator" or whatever will surely disappear as soon as it's open to anyone – that's the way it seems to be heading on Twitter. Indeed, you could make the argument that the value actually flips, and becomes an "indicator of someone willing to pay for a notability indicator." Although it's possible the political argument around Twitter right now is skewing perceptions too and that may not translate across to Facebook so much – hard to say. Either way, I can't see how this won't be flooded by scammers and spammers. Facebook will have a really tough job weeding them out even with the government ID requirements, I think. It's still going to be a gauntlet of internet marketing nonsense, with blue tick bros selling $1000 courses on how to sell courses to people who want to make courses. I can see a situation developing where no one wants a blue tick, is what I'm saying. And that's far from the only issue here. Authors with pen names, or who otherwise don't use their legal name as their public name on Facebook for whatever reason, will not be able to get verified as things stand. Facebook is hinting that may change in the future, but it has not even given a rough timeline on that. That's a huge issue for many writers, obviously. And even if they solve that problem in some way, it's worth noting that Facebook does not permit more than one verified Page per account so if you have multiple pen names, you will only be able to verify one of them even if Facebook fixes this. From the small print under the announcement: "At this time, Meta Verified will only support your real name on your profile. Once your profile is verified, you can't change the profile name, username, date of birth, or photo on your profile without going through the Meta Verified subscription and verifications application process again." There's a more fundamental issue too: why is Facebook charging a subscription for a one-off job? Facebook won't be continually verifying accounts – indeed, you won't be allowed change your Page Name or Facebook Page Profile Picture after getting verified (not without going through verification again). And, as Jon Loomer pointed out, what happens if you decide the subscription isn't worth it? Do you lose your badge and your verified status? Will your own readers start reporting your page as fake? Or do you keep the badge forever once you have paid for a single month? Verification primarily benefits Facebook, and it's proposing to charge us for it – a recurring fee, for a one-off job. And to get away with that, Facebook has scrabbled together a deeply uninspiring feature set to try and round out the picture. 2: Protection from ImpersonationYou know this is going to be a thin list when the second benefit listed in Zuck's announcement is something that Facebook is already doing. As with Twitter, Facebook already provides extra security checks and monitoring on blue tick accounts. I seem to remember having to beef up my passwords, turn on 2FA authentication back before everyone else had to, and more proactive security around things like forgotten password links and so forth. The only difference here is that it's now open to everyone (willing to pay). Of course, this is something a platform should be doing anyway – and indeed most of those security features have rolled out to all Facebook users since I got verified a few years ago anyway. It's really hard to see how this is a selling point. It's Facebook's job to protect your account from impersonation regardless. Telling us that you'll try harder for the blue tick posse isn't super convincing. Not given the trouble I have been experiencing. I have a blue tick on Facebook, as I have told you about 20 times in this email so you know exactly how important I am. And my own experience is that I saw an increase in phishing attempts after I got verified, rather than the other way round. My Page gets spammed all the time with very serious phishing attempts. They used to be very infrequent. There was a process in the past for reporting them, and Facebook used to follow up to make sure the issues were resolved. They stopped bothering with that about a year ago. Some days I get several of these; Facebook even kindly emails me to recommend some of these phishing posts. And some of the fakes are really good too. Facebook can't seem to solve this basic problem, and I'm verified (remember?). 3. Better SupportSpoiler alert: people are really overindexing on this also. I can see why, it sounds great. "Access to a real person for common account issues." Woah! Actual support? A person you can call? Hands-on help with stuff? What's not to like? Let's be real. I have spent a lot of money on Facebook Ads over the years – both for myself and for various high-spending clients who I assisted with launches and the likes over the years. I'm not going to name-drop, but let's just say that these authors are some of the biggest sellers in their genres and they spend a considerable sum on advertising to generate their (also astonishing) numbers. And I see the level of support they get. It's one rung up from the level of support you get when you're spending $1 a day on Facebook Ads. I basically only tap into it when something very seriously goes wrong – like an ad account getting shut down. Aside from support, I've also had something like a couple dozen account reps at Facebook. A couple of them were very good (they didn't last long!). Most of them were just running through the motions. Some were actively terrible. Even the good ones gave out a lot of generic advice that doesn't work for books, or had times when they were really pushing one Facebook feature or another, because of some top-down directive. That goes with the territory of course, but worth noting as some people seem to think they are going to have expert, tailored advice on tap. There used to be value in having a rep regardless – a few years ago anyway. These days, they are more of a nuisance to be brutally honest. That sounds terrible, and more a comment on the training and escalation procedures at Facebook than the humans in question, but it's the reality. But we're not talking about account reps here with Meta Verified, I don't think Facebook is intending to provide even that level of tepid service. I've heard the argument advanced that Facebook will ringfence this $12 a month to bankroll a higher level of support, but this claim is simply not credulous to me. I'm sure Nike and Pepsi have a guy on call. Indeed, that was kind of my job for a while, taking such calls many years ago when I worked in tech. But if the guys spending $100,000 a year on Facebook Ads can't get anything more than an elementary level of support, I just can't see it happening for the Verified peeps putting a whole $144 a year into Zuckerberg's endless VR fund. Worth noting also that support is getting worse for big spenders – not better. At least, that's my experience. Both myself and the authors I've worked with in the past – far bigger fish than me – have had issues with ads rejected continually en masse, accounts suspended, ad accounts shut down, account hijacks, fraud – you name it. And the level of support in getting those issues resolved was pretty amateur, given the seriousness of the situations. Some of these problems took weeks to resolve – even for what we would consider big spenders. Problems which prevented them spending large sums of money on Facebook Ads, which rather revealingly didn't seem to encourage Facebook to move any quicker. Meta Verified is going to be labor-intensive enough with all the internet marketers stampeding for blue ticks - hey, everyone's a creator these days. Plus, Meta just fired a whole bunch of people… and is planning to fire a bunch more. 4. Increased Visibility and ReachOK, this at least sounds good and will obviously be the biggest draw for savvy authors. But if you are excited about this aspect, then prepare yourself for the sound of air slowly escaping from a balloon. I think Facebook knew this announcement was rushed, and thin as well, and desperately tried to pad it out with something sexy. Why doesn't want more visibility? Who doesn't want more reach? I feel almost mean at this point but this is also something Facebook was already giving to existing verified accounts. Because I already get "increased visibility and reach." This is the most underwhelming thing ever and people are going to be so mad when they pay for this and see what they really get. At least as far as I can tell, it's primarily what I alluded to above: more visibility in the search results for your Page. You'll scoop up a few extra Likes from that, and perhaps Page suggestions to users. Probably not the highest value Likes ever, but it's something I guess. And you'll pop more in comments – but pros and cons there, as mentioned already. Does Facebook plan to give these verified Pages more than that? Let's look at the actual announcement again, because I think people are reading too much into this also. Increased visibility and reach with prominence in some areas of the platform – like search, comments and recommendations. Yeah. See what I mean? Some areas of the platform. Doesn't really sound like it's gonna make your posts more visible or your ads more clicky. Maybe I'm wrong about that, we'll see. I just can't see Facebook undercutting its highly refined system for measuring and rewarding engagement – that we broke down in detail last week (link up top if you missed that) – just because someone has paid $12 a month. And I especially can't see it undercutting its incredibly lucrative ad program. So, if I am wrong about that, I would expect any reach boost to posts to be on the minimal side and only of real interest to those taking the first steps in growing their Page audience. There's some evidence for that, again in the fine print under the announcement, where the bodies are traditionally buried: Increased visibility may vary depending on a subscriber's existing audience size and the topic of their posts. Subscribers with a smaller following may see a more noticeable impact to their reach since their audiences are smaller. I'll be generous and call this an open question, but I'm confident it's not going to be any significant and ongoing boost in the way people are thinking. 5. You Get A Sticker And You Get A Sticker And You Get A StickerThe final part of the announcement was the time to stop this car going into the ditch, to pull something out of the bag, to throw a Hail Mary. Instead we got the PR equivalent of a disappointing concert ending with a sad trombone. Facebook is promising "exclusive features to express yourself in unique ways." Oh, like some kind of cool streaming or video thing to better connect with your audience? A cool way of curating content that your readers will love? Some easier way to handle links for your international peeps? A better way to manage groups? Fun ways to host giveaways? Proper integration with your mailing list? A better store to sell direct on Facebook? Tools for cross-promoting with other Verified creators? Access to sponsorship or branding deals? Page takeovers? It's none of those things. Instead, you are getting stickers. Not real stickers obviously but virtual stickers. You also get "100 stars" to give to your favorite creators, which are worth US$0.01 each. (I am not joking.) Of course, many of those creators will actually be publishing their videos on YouTube because Google shares half the ad revenue with them. You would need a universe of stars to match that offer. But you do get those stickers. Unique stickers. Special stickers. These stickers, man, they are going to be great. They'll get this car out of the ditch and drive it all the way home. You'll see. Maybe we'll even stop for ice cream. Dave P.S. Music this week is Gregory Porter with The In Crowd.
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Friday, February 24, 2023
This is Verified and it is terrible
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