With over 800 million monthly users and the average daily view time sitting at around 52 minutes, TikTok is now the hottest new platform on the social media scene. Naturally, such immense growth comes hand-in-hand with loads of marketing potential—and all companies seeing great ROI from their campaigns have one thing in common: they all have a TikTok Verified Badge.
While it’s certainly not the be-all and end-all of marketing by any stretch, getting a TikTok Verified Badge can be one of several decisive factors to your efforts on the platform. A verified badge gives weight to your content, providing the extra edge needed to push your results from the good to the great column.
Today, we’re answering a question that’s on a lot of TikToker’s minds: how do you get verified on TikTok? But first, let’s start with the basics.
What does being verified on TikTok mean?
Before we dive deeper into the issue, let’s first get one thing clear – what does it mean precisely to be verified on TikTok?
You’ve probably noticed that some TikTok accounts have a blue check mark next to the account name, similarly to Twitter. These are the so-called verified accounts. The blue check mark means that TikTok, as a company, has checked and verified the account and recognizes that the account belongs to the person or brand representing it. The TikTok verified badge therefore instills a layer of trustworthiness which is particularly important with big brand names.
Why going after a TikTok Verified Badge is most certainly worth the effort
There’s an abundance of reasons why getting a TikTok Verified Badge should be high on your to-do list:
- Authority: Once verified, your account becomes officially endorsed by TikTok as a trusted thought-leader, strengthening your brand’s authority across the platform.
- Authenticity: Getting verified on TikTok comes with a ton of credibility, improving the way other users perceive your account.
- Trustworthiness: A badge gives your profile an added layer of trustworthiness, allowing you to build trust among high profile accounts and their followers.
- Exposure: Thanks to the platform’s algorithms, verified accounts have the potential to reach every nook and cranny of TikTok. Your videos gain more likes, which leads to organic growth in followers.
Sounds great? It definitely does, but (as usual) there’s a catch. Unfortunately, TikTok’s official verification criteria is not entirely clear-cut, so there’s no sure-fire guide to acquiring a TikTok Verified Badge.
Fortunately, there are several ways you can tilt the scale in your favor instead of relying on wishful thinking, which leads us nicely into the focal point of this article…
How do you get verified on TikTok?
First of all, let’s clear one common misconception. A lot of people are wondering how many followers to get verified on TikTok you need. The answer is: it doesn’t matter. The follower count is not among the criteria for getting verified. What matters is that the account is authentic, active, complete and secure, and that it is notable – talked about in the media, featured in news outlets, and so on.
To get verified on TikTok, you need to make a request within the app.
- Log into the app and go to Profile located at the bottom of the interface.
- Select Menu and then tap on Settings and Privacy.
- Tap on Manage account and then select Verification.
- Complete a series of simple steps within the app to submit a request for a verified badge.
Note that Business Accounts can only apply for Business Verification, while Personal Accounts apply for Personal and Institutional Verification.
If you’re not seeing these options at all, this might be due to your location not supporting the Verification feature.
Removing the verified badge is not possible. If, for any reason, you need to remove it, you can trigger the removal by changing your username. This is because verified badges are tied to a username. Changing it requires reapplying for verification.
Other reasons for removal of the badge include change of ownership of the account and switching between business, personal and institutional types of account.
You may be wondering – what happens when you get verified on TikTok? Well, nothing changes in the formal sense, but you may notice a rise in traffic, interactions and followers. People tend to trust verified accounts more, as the badge instills a sense of trustworthiness and authority. This is particularly true for brands – a big brand name without a blue checkmark next to the account name may even seem like a fake.
Pro tips for getting verified on TikTok
Here are several steps you can take to improve your chances of making it into TikTok’s “royalty” club:
#1 Have a sound content strategy
No marketing strategy on any social media should rely on improvisation. Having a constant influx of great ideas is vital, sure, but maximizing their impact boils down to having a sound strategy pulling the strings from the background.
Do your research on what works in your particular niche, examine what times of posting yield best results, measure the impact of your videos, stay up-to-date with trends, make the most out of popular hashtags, answer all relevant challenges, etc. You’ll also need to define some essential marketing materials, most notably your account’s tone of voice.
This, of course, entails a lot of work, so remember that you’re not forced to do this all on your own—you can always partner up with a marketing agency specialized in TikTok marketing, which allows you to not get bogged down by everyday grind and stay focused on the big picture.
#2 Demonstrate steady growth
If you aspire to get a TikTok Verified Badge, the bulk of your efforts should go towards growing your account.
Your account should exhibit a continuous growth of followers, but remember that quantity does not come over quality in this instance—the number of views is important, but so are engagement and session times. The more watch time your videos get, the better the odds of a video going viral, which is precisely what you want to happen.
Viral content is the main bloodline of TikTok and demonstrating your ability to create these kinds of videos will go a long way when pursuing a verified badge.
Also worth noting is that getting verified on TikTok is not solely based on your activity on this platform. In fact, your chances of getting a badge will skyrocket if you have verified accounts on other social media or if you were featured in some online publications. This gives you immediate credibility and proves to TikTok that you’re a person of interest worth having on the platform, giving them a strong reason to encourage your activity with a TikTok Verified Badge.
#3 Interact with other users
Between challenges, likes, duets, comments, and shares, there are a plethora of ways to engage with other TikTok users. You should be utilizing every single one of them.
Besides making sure your followers are feeling appreciated with replies and likes, you should also give them extra incentives to continue following you. Come up with videos, challenges, or duets with the sole purpose of interacting with your followers. High levels of engagement will dramatically improve your odds of receiving the TikTok Verified Badge.
Of course, your efforts should not stop with your followers—follow your favorite users and interact with them. TikTok expects its top accounts to be as active as possible, so you should ensure you’re not centered solely on your own profile.
#4 Consistency is the name of the game
No matter how eye-catching your videos are, your chances of getting verified on TikTok are slim unless you’re consistently uploading content. Roll up your sleeves and make sure your brand is seen as a steady source of top videos.
Ideally, you want to post three videos per day to fill up the top row of your TikTok account, but this does not mean you should churn out meaningless filler content. If you want to make the most out of this platform, you’ll have to roll out high-end videos on a regular basis. Yet again, partnering up with an agency can help a ton here as they can help meet the high daily quota.
#5 Ensure your production is up to par with your ambitions
As a brand, you want to make sure your videos are reflecting the quality of your service. Alongside having great content in terms of creativity, your production values should also be as high as possible, and that requires investing in pro-grade equipment.
Needless to say, ensure you’re always filming with a newer iPhone or Samsung Galaxy phones as they have the best cameras. To go the extra mile, get a gimbal to ward off last-minute shakes and have an external microphone so your audio sounds flawless. Top-notch video editing software also goes a long way.
#6 Play by the rules
This should go without saying, but as you’re hoping to receive a TikTok Verified Badge, it’s probably a smart idea to follow the guidelines of the platform.
Follow the TikTok rules and regulations down to a T. Violating the instructions will get you flagged by the moderators, which will severely lessen the chance of ever receiving the verification badge.
TikTok verified badge for businesses
With so many active users willing to engage in conversations with brands, TikTok presents a golden opportunity for businesses that know how to maximize the full potential of this platform. Because most of the content found on TikTok is unconventional, brands can experiment a lot, thus giving them a chance to stand out and create content unique to them.
Not only that this brings potential to draw huge audiences closer to your products and services, it also gives them the possibility to connect to your core values, while having lots of fun in the process. That presents one of the quickest ways to create a steady and loyal base of clients.
If you have an existing history of other social networks such as YouTube, Facebook, Instagram or Twitter and you have a good following then you should try to get verified on those social networks first. These other social networks are easier for verifications than TikTok and TikTok will look you up on other social networks to make a decision on whether they should verify you. The more verifications you have received from other social networks the quicker you will get verified on TikTok.
Slow and steady wins the race on TikTok
If you stick to everything we listed above, you’ll be well on your way to receiving the TikTok Verified Badge. How long it will take is anyone’s guess, but the good news is that your marketing campaigns on TikTok do not need to wait for your profile to get verified.
Brands who have successfully pivoted to TikTok have reaped huge brand awareness and growth rewards—if you’re interested in maximizing your presence on the platform, reach out to our team now and we’ll sort you out with a completely free TikTok advertising plan!
