Should your business buy Twitter's $1,000 gold checkmark?

If you thought $8 to get a Twitter Blue checkmark is bad, wait til you hear what Elon’s cooked up for Verified Organizations.

Let’s get it out of the way: it’s $1,000/month. It’ll make sense for some businesses, it won’t for many, and maybe most.

What is Twitter Verified Organizations?

So, what does $1k get your business? The official language isn’t intuitive, so I’ll break it down with bullets.

• All of Twitter Blue’s features (tweet editing, 4k character tweets, etc)

• a gold checkmark on your profile

• a square Twitter avatar

• Custom business Affiliated Badges

• Verified Organizations Portal, allowing businesses to instantly verify anyone the business affiliates (if you pay $50 per user)

That’s the whole kit and caboodle. If you’re laughing, I get it, but there are a few features worth chatting about + business models that might view that grand as a steal.

Okay, so… why would a business pay for that?

The major innovation here is Affiliations. It’s a new Twitter feature that allows Verified Organizations to deem select people as Affiliates, who receive a small image of their organization’s Twitter account profile picture next to their name.

Here’s an example in the wild. Tommy Clark writes a social media newsletter for Workweek, a media company.

See that yellow and black W next to his blue checkmark? That’s an Affiliate Badge. When you click it, you’re taken to Workweek’s Twitter account, which sports that pretty gold checkmark.

It got me thinking… there really are some smart ways to use that feature that are probably worth a whole lot more than $1k/month.

The business case for Affiliate Badges

If your business has public figures whose association with your business is a serious driver of awareness, interest, and/or revenue, you really might wanna consider this. Twitter mentions it could be for “new employees, a newly launched movie franchise, or recent team changes for professional sports groups.” Honestly, fair and smart.

What if a movie’s cast all had the movie poster as an Affiliate Badge? Take The Fast & The Furious…err, The Fast Saga. Ensemble cast action movie that pretty much adds on new star per film. This time? Jason Mamoa’s on board as the villain.

Imagine if every Fast Saga star had a Fast X Affiliate Badge next to their name during the movie’s marketing campaign? Better yet, imagine Fast X teased Jason’s involvement by giving him the Fast X logo a day or two before the trailer dropped?

What if pro and college players had their team’s logo as an Affiliate Badge? Twitter went bananas when Kevin Durant was traded to the Phoenix Suns. Imagine the internet chaos when he adds the Suns’ logo as an Affiliate Badge? In the modern sports world, star athletes are often bigger “brands” than their teams—driving team social traffic from the star’s Twitter could be huge.

Take another huge cultural sports moment: when high school athletes commit to their colleges. Those players would love to toss the Duke logo on their Twitter profiles after they sign their scholarship. It’s a huge point of pride, and a huge interest driver for the school.

What if your company’s celebrity public figures had an Affiliate Badge? My old pals at Xbox immediately came to mind. Gaming culture turned the console’s senior staffers into internet celebrities. Take Larry Hryb, Director Of Programming for Xbox Live, or as he’s known on Twitter, Major Nelson. 1.1 million followers. How about Aaron Greenberg, VP of Xbox Games Marketing? 285,000 followers. Boy, their Twitters would look good with that Xbox logo next to their names.

Think about it this way: it’s not expensive verification, it’s affordable influencer marketing. Those examples I gave above? As influencers, they’d all be much more expensive than $1,000/month to wear a logo on content. But they’d easily drive enough interest to justify the cost during their season, or their movie campaign, or a launch moment.

Do businesses have to get Verified Organizations?

Nope! Elon can’t make you do anything you don’t wanna do. And most businesses without notable public figures probably shouldn’t buy Verified Orgs.

Musky has said that “starting April 15th, only verified accounts will be eligible to be in the For You recommendations,” so I do recommend your business sign up for some form of verification to be present everywhere on Twitter. Which leads to the other question…

Can businesses sign up for Twitter Blue instead?

Yes! I think? I’m pretty sure. Twitter’s trying to make it sound like Twitter Blue is for individuals and Verified Orgs are for organizations, but various brands + sports teams have told me they’re able to pay for Twitter Blue.

For most businesses, this is the path you should take. $8/month, blue checkmark, great additional features.