Table of Contents
Introduction – What Is Twitter Verified?
What is the Twitter Verified Program?
On March 23, 2023, Twitter tweeted on its Twitter Verified account that they were sunsetting the legacy verified program as of March 31, 2023. That means that, as of April 1, 2023, personal or organizational accounts that were previously verified manually would lose their status if they do not pay a monthly fee.
The monthly fee for individual accounts is US$8/month directly from Twitter or US$11/month through iOS and Android app stores (designed by a blue checkmark).
Organizations pay US$1,000/month (designated by a gold checkmark) plus an additional US$50/month for each affiliate account (designated by a blue square Twitter logo). Grey checkmarks are reserved for government officials.
Exceptions to the new program
According to the Washington Post, New York Times, and other media, there are exceptions to the new initiative. The top 10,000 top-followed verified sites and the top 500 advertisers will retail their legacy checkmarks even if they do not subscribe to the Twitter for Business program. It was also reported that de-listing is a manual process and it will take some time for Twitter employees to remove the Twitter Verified badge from accounts that do not qualify for the grandfathered scheme.*
* – In a public dispute with the New York Times, Twitter has removed its badge even though the newspaper organization is the 24th most followed account with more than 54 million followers as of April 2, 2023.
Implications for Retail Brands
In an early insight post, we discuss the general implications for retailers using Twitter as a social media platform of choice for customer engagement, promotions, and alert communication.
We discussed what retail brands should observe and how to manage a sea of potential bad actors paying for verified accounts to mimic or take over from official accounts. This new development could extend malicious actions for brands who lose their Twitter verified badge due to non-payment from forgetfulness or direct intention.
While we do not have the top 500 advertiser list available as Twitter is now a private company, we can use tools to assess if a retail brand is within the top 10,000 most followed list. Here are some examples of popular retail brands and their current rankings:
Apparel/Department Store/E-Commerce
| Brand | Handle | Number of Followers | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Burberry | @burberry | 8,192,234 | 632 |
| Gucci | @gucci | 7,104,053 | 775 |
| Amazon | @amazon | 5,438,626 | 1,156 |
| Target | @target | 2,138,208 | 4,131 |
| Prada | @prada | 1,839,817 | 5,002 |
| Zara | @zara | 1,378,726 | 7,129 |
| Walmart | @walmart | 1,363,845 | 7,232 |
| Lululemon | @lululemon | 974,492 | 10,803 |
| Macy’s | @macys | 883,725 | 12,015 |
| Nordstrom | @nordstrom | 695,612 | 15,809 |
| Hudsons Bay | @hudsonsbay | 140,536 | 88,376 |
| Holt Renfrew | @holtrenfrew | 80,978 | 147,300 |
| Costco Canada | @costcocanada | 51,958 | 213,769 |
| Harry Rosen | @harryroseninc | 6,827 | 977,280 |
Supermarkets/Fast Food Chains
| Brand | Handle | Number of Followers | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starbucks | @starbucks | 11,071,128 | 392 |
| Amazon | @amazon | 5,438,626 | 1,156 |
| McDonald’s | @mcdonalds | 4,771,956 | 1,401 |
| Wendy’s | @wendys | 3,916,787 | 1,826 |
| Burger King | @burgerking | 2,041,663 | 4,382 |
| KFC | @kfc | 1,673,128 | 5,631 |
| Tim Hortons | @timhortons | 662,475 | 16,728 |
| Aldi USA | @aldiusa | 107,406 | 114,632 |
| Sobeys | @sobeys | 51,518 | 215,324 |
| Loblaws | @loblawco | 6,146 | 1,047,545 |
Note 1: Costco and Costco Canada stopped monitoring Twitter activities in 2019.
Note 2: As of April 2023, the follower threshold to make the top 10,000 list is around one million followers.
Retail Mashup collected information for 25 popular retail brands and noted that many national chains like Tim Hortons, Lulumon, Hudson’s Bay, etc. do not meet the top 10,000 organization criteria. These brands are active with their tweets and should be aware that their Twitter Verified badge may disappear within a moment’s notice.
Their customer experience/operation/marketing team should make a decision on whether to keep the platform as part of their customer engagement and communication strategy. In doing so, they should include the monthly fee in their budget.
If these brands choose to retain their Twitter account name but stop all engagement or monitoring, they should make sure this direction is communicated to all customers through their newsletter, mobile application notifications, website, company bulletins, etc. This will build awareness and reduce potential service gaps resulting from customers relying on the Twitter platform for information.
Retailers who abandon the platform should note that users might still tag their handle in various tweets. It is important to check the account for unusual activities as part of their regular social media maintenance.
What’s Next Retail Brands And The Twitter Verified Program?
Elon Musk and the social media platform executive team hope that the Twitter Verified Program will bring them a more consistent revenue stream. This might impact brands that are active on the platform but do not have the budget to intention to pay for the monthly subscription fee.
The biggest risk of losing the Twitter Verified badge is that users may be confused by another entity creating a verified account using a similarly named handle. In this case, customers could be fooled into providing personal data (e.g., credit card information, name, address, etc.) or clicking a malicious link that could severely impact them.
Retail brands have the accountability and ownership to educate and inform customers about potential fraud associated with the Twitter platform. Beyond education and awareness building, it is beneficial for the brands to be proactive by monitoring customer feedback or surveying customers on the role of Twitter in their customer experience journey. The goal is to reduce negative sentiment or financial impact on customers engaging with accounts faking the real brand.
Final Words
Retail brands have a dilemma. Should they stay with the Twitter platform or the Twitter Verified program? Those that are grandfathered should monitor rule changes in the next twelve months and build contingencies. Those that are not grandfathered should determine the next course of action with respect to using Twitter as a form of customer engagement.
Updates
April 21, 2023: Since the original post was published on April 6, 2023, there have been some changes to the Twitter Verified program for individual and organizational accounts as well as the use of the Twitter API.
- On April 20, 2023, Twitter started removing the blue verified checkmark accounts that did not meet the criteria stated above.
- Marketers will have to pay US$8 per month for Twitter Blue or be verified as a noteworthy organization. Any advertiser already running at least $1,000 in ads is automatically verified.
- New API pricing tier to search and use tweets (this impacts how brands can tweet, conduct real-time reaction research, and long-term marketing research based on tweets, hashtags, or accounts.
- Free – write only/up to 1,500 tweet posts per month at the app level / very limited search capability
- US$100/month – 50,000 tweet posts per month posting limit at the app level and 10,000 Tweets read-limit cap
- US$42,000/month – 50 million tweet posts per month
- US$125,000/month – 100 million tweet posts per month
- US$210,000/month – 200 million tweet posts per month
- The “government-funded media” and “state-affiliated” labels have been discontinued for all media organizations.
Twitter Verified Program – Retailer Implications
On April 20, 2023, Twitter started debranding accounts that have not subscribed to its Twitter Verified Program, are not part of the top 10,000 accounts, or are on a top 50 advertiser list.
As noted in the examples below, we reviewed accounts on April 21, 2023, and noted some interesting observations. While Ralph Lauren and Chanel would have met the top 10,000 account criteria with more than 2.3 million and 13.5 million followers, they did not receive the gold verified checkmark. Dior with 9.3 million followers has one.
Given that the gold-verified checkmark may be applied manually, brands who believe they qualify should contact Twitter immediately for updates. Additionally, all brands that are both active and used to be active on Twitter but lost the verified checkmark should monitor their feeds for bad actors trying to imitate the real account by buying a subscription. Additionally, account holders should evaluate their marketing strategy and manage customer expectations by building awareness on how to spot real versus fake accounts.
July 24, 2023: After discussing a brand change for weeks, Twitter has officially changed its logo from the blue bird to an “X”. x.com also points to twitter.com moving forward. This brand change goal is to evolve the social media platform into a “super app” and leave communication behind.
The following is the email from X’s CEO, Linda Yaccarino, to employees obtained by CNBC’s Sara Eisen.
Hi team,
What a momentous weekend. As I said yesterday, it’s extremely rare, whether it’s in life or in business, that you have the opportunity to make another big impression. That’s what we’re experiencing together, in real time. Take a moment to put it all into perspective.
17 years ago, Twitter made a lasting imprint on the world. The platform changed the speed at which people accessed information. It created a new dynamic for how people communicated, debated, and responded to things happening in the world. Twitter introduced a new way for people, public figures, and brands to build long lasting relationships. In one way or another, everyone here is a driving force in that change. But equally all our users and partners constantly challenged us to dream bigger, to innovate faster, and to fulfill our great potential.
With X we will go even further to transform the global town square — and impress the world all over again.
Our company uniquely has the drive to make this possible. Many companies say they want to move fast — but we enjoy moving at the speed of light, and when we do, that’s X. At our core, we have an inventor mindset — constantly learning, testing out new approaches, changing to get it right and ultimately succeeding.
With X, we serve our entire community of users and customers by working tirelessly to preserve free expression and choice, create limitless interactivity, and create a marketplace that enables the economic success of all its participants.
The best news is we’re well underway. Everyone should be proud of the pace of innovation over the last nine months — from long form content, to creator monetization, and tremendous advancements in brand safety protections. Our usage is at an all time high and we’ll continue to delight our entire community with new experiences in audio, video, messaging, payments, banking — creating a global marketplace for ideas, goods, services, and opportunities.
Please don’t take this moment for granted. You’re writing history, and there’s no limit to our transformation. And everyone, is invited to build X with us.
Elon and I will be working across every team and partner to bring X to the world. That includes keeping our entire community up to date, ensuring that we all have the information we need to move forward.
Now, let’s go make that next big impression on the world, together.
Linda
Additionally, the platform indicated that it has lost over 50% of its ad revenue since the initial Elon Musk acquisition was completed.
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