Yes, it is good news that Instagram is allowing for an in-app form for account verification, but this doesn’t really make your chances of getting the blue tick any better. Remember how Twitter got us all excited a while ago with a similar move, it put the forms public and let anyone
send an application for the blue tick. But did you actually get the blue tick? Exactly! Now you see the problem.
via GIPHY
Instagram itself has spelled this out very clearly, “submitting a request for verification does not guarantee that your account will be verified.”
What do I have to do to be eligible for the verification badge?
As per Instagram’s hub on verified badges, the platform says that it evaluates your account for “authenticity, uniqueness, completeness, and notability” — the criteria that must be met in addition to abiding by the platform’s terms of service.
Now, how do you meet these criteria? Well, let’s take one of these factors at a time. Instagram defines an authentic account as one that “represent[s] a real person, registered business or entity.” So be ready with government-issued ID for this. You can also show your tax bills, or bank details for the same. Though why anyone would want to give those to data-hungry Facebook is beyond us.
Then there is ‘uniqueness’, by which Instagram means that it wants to approve only one account per business. Basically, if Tech2 has three different Instagram accounts, unless all three cater to different language-speaking audiences or something like that, the platform would want to verify only the primary of the three accounts.
Completeness is basically how up to date your profile is. Essentially your accounts needs to look interested and interesting both. For this, make sure your account is public, has a profile picture, an updated bio and at least one post. Do note, Instagram stipulates that your account “can’t contain ‘add me’ links to other social media services,” so prune anything like that.