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Final Note

How do you get your Twitter account verified?

Kai Ryssdal Jan 10, 2012

This final note today, another entry in the who’s who on Twitter sweepstakes. Celebrities and the president and basically, big names, get a little blue verified check mark on their accounts. A report in Ad Age today says one way to get verified is to spend $15,000 on advetising on the social media site.

I don’t have that kind of money, and so my Twitter account isn’t verified. But I did notice someone else you probably hear a lot on the radio is. So we called him up — Guy Raz, the host of Weekend All Things Considered — and asked him how he did it.

Ryssdal: Hey Guy, how are you?

Guy Raz: How are you?

Ryssdal: I’m all right, but listen: I have a question. So you’ve got like, what, 4,000 Twitter followers?

Raz: Uh, a little bit more than that, but something like that.

Ryssdal: All right.

Raz: Not as good as you.

Ryssdal: Well I was going to say, I have a multiple thereof, and yet I don’t have that little verified checkmark. How’d you get that?

Raz: Well you would think you would have to be really important, right?

Ryssdal: Touche, yes.

Raz: And it turns out that you actually don’t need to be important or that well-known, because I am neither of those things. Yet I have that verified check on my account, right?

Ryssdal: Yeah.

Raz: So the story is, there’s a guy named Eric Kuhn, and he works for the United Talent Agency.

Ryssdal: Wait a minute — are you telling me I need to get an agent? Is that where we’re going here?

Raz: He came by, and he mentioned that we should all have those verified accounts. And literally within a day or so after that, I had that checkmark next to my name.

Ryssdal: I am so calling my agent, as soon as I get one.

Raz: Yeah, you’ve got to call this guy.

Ryssdal: I’ll do that.

Raz: Yeah.

Ryssdal: Thanks man.

Raz: Hey no problem. And by the way, I just want to let you know how many people thank me all the financial news they get from my program.

Ryssdal: That’s right. And they love me on Weekend All Things Considered.

Raz: Thank you so much.

Ryssdal: All right, we’ll see you.

Get it?

Guy. Kai.

Can’t tell you how often that happens.

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