Twitter Opens Account Verification to Everyone But There's A Catch

For several years now Twitter has made attempts at filtering out imposter accounts from the real deal by verifying high profile business and celebrity accounts. For the most part the process and qualifications to becoming Twitter Verified has been a little bit vague to say the least. There wasn’t really a formal procedure to request a verified account, but as of today that has all changed.

Twitter has announced that they have created an online application process that makes it possible for just about anyone to request account verification. There is however, a bit of a catch. Twitter must deem you worthy of being verified - shocking I know but we'll get into that below.

“We want to make it even easier for people to find creators and influencers on Twitter so it makes sense for us to let people apply for verification,” Twitter User Services VP Tina Bhatnagar said in a press release Tuesday. “We hope opening up this application process results in more people finding great, high-quality accounts to follow, and for these creators and influencers to connect with a broader audience.”

Getting Started
The process to becoming verified is pretty simple and for the most part Twitter has streamlined things as much as possible. For starters users who want to verify their account will obviously need to verify themselves, it wouldn't make much sense otherwise right? You''l need to first verify a few things like your phone number and email associated with your account. You'll also need to have an actual photo and bio on your profile, if you are an individual it will need to be a photo and info on you. Twitter may also request that you scan and upload a legible copy of your government-issued ID (such as a passport or driver’s license) to confirm your identity.

If you are looking to verify a business the photos will need to have the corporation’s branding, or the company’s branding. The email address and website associated with the account will also need to point to a corporate or company email address or website.

In addition to those basics Twitter says they may ask you for a few more things, and here is where things start to get a bit tricky. Someone, or a team of someones at Twitter are going to judge whether or not you are worthy of being verified. To do so Twitter is going to ask you to explain to them why they should bother with verifying your account. If the account represents a person, they want to understand your impact in your field. If the account represents a corporation or company, they want to know what your company's mission statement is.

What Does It Take To Be Twitter Verified?
Essentially  what it boils down to is Twitter wants to know if you are truly a person of public interest. What exactly does that mean? Well Twitter says the accounts they are most looking to verify are those maintained by public figures and organizations in music, TV, film, fashion, government, politics, religion, journalism, media, sports, business, and other key interest areas. So we are guessing here that they are looking for people that are high profile and attract a lot of attention.

This really doesn't give us much to go on as there doesn't seem to be much in the form of official criteria for what makes one person “of public interest” and another not. We've seen several of our fellow bloggers as well as several media personalities that have verified account while co-workers or cohorts in the same field don't. Either way at least now we have a bit more detail and a bit easier route to take to get verified.

Want To Get Verified? Submit Your Request To Twitter
You can submit your request to verify an account by filling out this form, and Twitter will respond to your request via email. If your request is denied, you can submit another request for the same account 30 days after receiving the email.

Even if you aren't sure if you should become verified or not, I say go for it. You really have nothing to lose here. Just think, if you are verified you'll become one of the 187,000 or so people out of 310 million or so that are verified on the site.