How many followers to get verified

You just need to prove that your online brand is worth something. Getting your account verified used to be a process filled with smoke and mirrors. Nothing was official, and many turned to shady dealers who promised they could get it done. Do you already have an established digital brand through organic SEO and other social media channels? Read our tips section below for more detailed information. Tap the settings menu to proceed to the next step.

Click it to continue to the application page. Note: Lying about personal details or falsifying proof can lead to losing your badge or even getting your account deleted. Be honest. Choose the file, upload it, and your application is ready to send. Click the send button to finalize your application. Gif Source. Real people are involved in the verification process.

You need to convince them that you matter. MMA competitor Brian Kelleher is a good example of this. He has a similar number of followers, 18,, and is also verified on that platform.

If you have hundreds of thousands of followers on Instagram, you may not need any other platforms. At the time of verification, our account had roughly followers and 8 posts. There are hundreds of articles written online attempting to demystify the verification process, giving step by step instructions on how to get your account verified.

All of these guides reinforce three points of relevance that Instagram looks for—having a huge following, being active and representing a celebrity— all of which were untrue for us, and we still got verified.

Based on our experience I can tell you that a lot of what is written online about getting verified is mostly speculation and not grounded in truth or experience. Having been verified, we have a unique lens into the experience and can tell you what we believe Instagram—and other platforms like Twitter and Facebook—look for when choosing who to verify. If you follow these three steps we believe you can have a way higher shot at getting verified without being a celebrity, based on our own experience.

This also applies to whatever platform you are trying to get verified on, be it Twitter, Facebook or Youtube. Apparently, even Tinder has verified users now, too!

Whichever platform is your goal, you need to work on building your presence somewhere else. There is a reasoning behind this. If you build your brand on Instagram, implementing hashtag research , collecting thousands of followers over a long period of time, this is where people will know you from.

You can be easily found on that platform and it is unlikely someone with a similar name could be mistaken for you. After all, Instagram even explains that verification is part of their process of improving the user experience:. We want to make sure that people in the Instagram community can easily find the authentic people and brands they want to follow.

What are parallel platforms? Only they can verify you. Before, Instagram was pretty much a black box in terms of who got the blue check. Luckily for Instagrammers everywhere, since August 28, , users have been able to request verification from Instagram directly. Go to your Instagram profile by tapping the icon with your profile picture in the bottom-right corner.

Tap on the menu icon in the top-right corner of your profile. Select the settings icon that appears at the bottom-right of your screen, then select Account from the settings menu. Scroll down through the account settings until you see Request verification , then tap it.

A form will appear with your account name pre-filled. First, add your full name for businesses, the full name of whoever manages your Instagram will do. Someone famous on one of the networks, may not be considered a celebrity on the other. Ultimately, Instagram sums up its policy with the following statement. Of course, despite Instagram not considering the verification tick to be a status symbol, that is how many of its users see it.

If you want to have that little tick beside your name, then you need to turn yourself into a "public figure, celebrity, or global brand. There is some evidence, however, that you first need to do this on a platform other than Instagram. This makes sense. If you have many genuine followers on Instagram, then people can obviously find you quickly enough. They are unlikely to be confused by whether your account is your own unless you share your name with another influencer. Hence you should first apply the suggestions here to another social network and build an influencer status there before you use them on Instagram.

If you build up a following on Instagram too quickly, before you find fame elsewhere, you may never become verified. Clearly, the key to being famous online is to become an authentic influencer. This means that you need plenty of people wanting to follow you. However, more importantly, you want followers who will interact with you and engage with your posts and statuses.

There is no point in having irrelevant followers, just to boost your numbers. We have previously covered how to become Instagram famous.

Although this focuses on making the most of Instagram's graphic nature, you can still use many of those tips to build your influencer status on another platform first. An essential requirement is to define your niche. While it might seem that you would gain more followers by trying to appeal to everybody, you are unlikely to increase your engagement that way. You need to build up recognition for your expertise in your preferred topic area.

For instance, Zoe Sugg first built her online reputation with her personal beauty and lifestyle blog — Zoella. She began her social media life with a YouTube channel, where she developed a reputation as a fashion and beauty guru. That channel now has more than 12 million dedicated followers.

Source: zoella. Having built her reputation on YouTube, Zoe was able to make a successful transition to other social networks, including Instagram. She has now developed a sizeable audience there that matches her YouTube following. Any engagement must be meaningful. Such meaningless comments do nothing to enhance your credibility as a thought leader. One way you can help your posts reach a wider audience is to use popular hashtags. Both Instagram and Twitter suggest popular hashtags.

There are also independent apps to assist with ideas, such as Hashtagify or TagBlender. We also have our Ultimate Guide to Using Instagram Hashtags to Grow your Followers , which should give you invaluable assistance in the use of Instagram hashtags.

Unfortunately, the fallout from the Cambridge Analytica scandal has meant that Facebook and Instagram have tightened up on the quantity of useful data they make available.