This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
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Welcome, hello. Thanks so much for tuning in today. My name's Chris Guillebeau, your host of Side Hustle School. Every single day we've got a new episode featuring a question, a tip, a case study, a story, something for someone like you who wants to make extra money without quitting your job. Whatever that looks like for you, it can mean a lot of different things to different people.
And today we've got a caller who seeks the holy grail of Instagram influencers. What is that? Well, she is looking for a check mark designating her account as extra, extra special, just really special person, also known as verified. Now she's looking to get verified on Instagram. She has found a service, in fact, that promises to make this happen for her, just because she's so nice.
Just kidding, they actually want $2,000 for it. $2,000 for this service of verification that doesn't actually come with any extra privileges, but some people think it matters. So is it an amazing deal or a terrible idea, or perhaps somewhere in between, should I pay to get verified on Instagram? That's what we're talking about today. Detailed question from our listener and my answer coming right up.
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Hey, this is Susan from Tampa, Florida. I've been listening for a while and I'm excited to grow my business as a nutritionist. Here's what I'm wondering, should I pay to get verified on Instagram? I found a service that costs $2,000, which is a lot of money, but I think this could be valuable for someone like me. The way it works is you pay a deposit and begin a three to six month application process where they establish credibility for you according to Instagram's verified account criteria.
Then you pay the rest once the verification actually happens. If I do it, I think I'd get more followers and my existing followers would also trust me more. But I worry that something could go wrong. What do you think? - Hey Susan, okay, wow.
Great question here, thanks for sharing. So guess what? It's probably not a good idea to do this, unfortunately. Or perhaps we should say fortunately because we're gonna save you $2,000. You know, I don't want you to waste your money.
I don't wanna say also that the service is definitely a scam, but I can say it's definitely not authorized by Instagram or as they say, meta, what used to be Facebook. And so when they find out people are doing this, there's been a number of stories, another number of examples like this. When they find out people are doing this, they shut it down, they shut down that service, and they typically remove any verifications that were provided because it's not supposed to be how it works in terms of getting those verifications. And just think about it. If you could merely pay for that check mark or that status symbol, you know, whatever it means, why would you need to wait three to six months?
Like why would you need to pay $2,000 and then wait a long time? You know, you could just be able to pay it and it'd be done if it was legit. The only reason for that delay is because it takes time for them to effectively con Instagram by creating a bunch of articles and doing some SEO trickery and so on. You know, otherwise, as I said, you could just pay for it and it would be done the next day. So if that sounds like bad news, here's some good news.
Good news is there's not much of a correlation between the number of followers or even the engagement you have on Instagram and the verification. You know, there's lots of people out there who have very active accounts, who've done a really good job, you know, just building up their following and they can build a great business without it. And then you've got other people like me, you know, like I have a verified account because I'm an author and I've published books and such, but that verification doesn't really help me very much because I don't post much on Instagram. I don't post very much. I don't engage a whole lot there.
So, you know, really if I wanted to improve, that's what I should do. So in short, and I would say focus your time on improving the account otherwise, not paying this service. And hopefully now you also have $2,000 to spend on something else. So good luck. Let us know how it goes.
Listeners, if you've got a question, if you're trying to figure out some way to get ahead, which I totally respect, by the way, no disrespect to the idea of figuring out, you know, what I can do to get some kind of advantage. Come to sidehustleschool.com/questions. Let me know what you're working on. We'll continue to feature them throughout the year, throughout the week, I should say, which occurs throughout the month and the year, along with updates and listeners as they launch and grow their projects. So glad you're out there.
Take care of yourself today. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School. [Music]
From the Onward Project.
