Facebook Introduces Verified Badges Four Years After Twitter

Facebook is getting into the verification business, borrowing a feature that Twitter first introduced almost four years ago.

Facebook’s verification badges for pages and profiles will also mimic Twitter by leaving much of the process unknown and internal.

It’s unclear why Facebook is making the move to verify brands and well-known figures with large audiences on the site but it plans to begin the proactive process over the coming days. The company will “automatically verify the largest pages on Facebook that are at the greatest risk of duplication,” a spokeswoman tells ClickZ.

“Verified pages belong to a small group of prominent public figures (celebrities, journalists, government officials, popular brands and businesses) with large audiences,” the site notes in a blog post announcing the news.

“I think that it’s an issue for a lot of the luxury brands,” Raina Penchansky, chief strategy officer for Digital Brand Architects, tells ClickZ. “Social and digital is a difficult space for luxury brands,” she says, because luxury brands prefer to maintain an aura of exclusivity by limiting their exposure and access to larger untargeted audiences.

While verified pages and profiles will add some semblance of authenticity, brands aren’t exactly begging for the feature or avoiding Facebook because they don’t have a small blue badge and check mark next to their names throughout the site.

“I’ve never seen any pushback from a brand,” says Penchansky. “It doesn’t feel like something that’s been a huge barrier for entry for our brands.” Still, she says, some brands might be a little uneasy about the arbitrary verification process, particularly since Facebook hasn’t outlined the requirements for verification or the ability to request a profile or page be verified.

The blue check mark identifying verified pages and profiles will appear in timelines, stories, search results, news feed ads and while users hover over the name of a page elsewhere on the site. Brands that don’t automatically receive verification over the coming weeks are being referred to Facebook’s help center where common duplication issues can be resolved.