After originally announcing its Meta Verified program for creators back in February, Meta is now set to expand the program even further, with a new Meta Verified for Business package coming soon.

As announced by the Meta team at their Conversations conference in Mumbai, Meta Verified for businesses will provide another way for brands to add more authority to their account, by buying a verified checkmark, even if the process of selling checkmarks lessens the value of the marker.

Which is the same criticism we’ve had of X’s ‘X Premium’ offering, that in selling checkmarks, you’re eroding any perceived reputational value that they may provide. But clearly, both X and Meta are generating enough interest in their paid verification packages to keep expanding them, with Meta also looking to sell business verification at a slightly higher price point.

The current Meta Verified package for individual creators costs around £10 per month, per platform. Meta’s verification for business package will cost roughly £16 per month per Instagram account or Facebook Page. And interestingly, Meta’s also looking to offer a combination package this time around, for verification of both your Facebook and IG business pages.

Right now, there’s no such package deal for individual creators, you have to pay for both separately to get checkmarks in each app. Which means you’re looking at a fair bit per month, at a minimum, for both.

So for businesses, it costs slightly more, though it’s a lot less than X’s $US1,000 per month Verification for Organisations package, and it also offers much the same elements, including this interesting variable in the bottom right:

“Get discovered in new ways by being featured as a Meta Verified business”

That could be interesting.

As noted, selling verification checks seems like a flawed strategy, in that it effectively reduces its own value over time, but there has always been demand for these in-app markers, and as a means to drive some easy additional revenue, I can see why both X and Meta are going with it. But it still seems like a road to nowhere, which, over time, will lose value.

Or Elon Musk is right, and eventually, we’ll all be paying to subscribe to social apps, and this is just the beginning of that next push. I guess, really, it depends on take-up, and if we reach a tipping point, where more businesses are verified than those that aren’t, maybe then it’ll become a more critical offering for all brands.

Or it could go the other way, as it has on X thus far, and fewer businesses bother to sign on, because it doesn’t actually mean anything. Then you have to look at other motivators to boost interest, which is why X is reportedly considering charging all users instead.

Whatever it may be, it seems like we’re going to find out, as Meta’s Verified for Business package is coming sometime soon.

What do you think of the paid verification packages? Would you pay for it as a business or think it’s a scam? Let us know!…