A shiny blue badge with a white checkmark now appears on the Syracuse University Twitter page.

This signifies @SyracuseU is a verified Twitter account, a change SU’s social media team noticed on Feb. 6.

Twitter verification is used to “establish authenticity of identities on Twitter. The verified badge helps users discover high-quality sources of information and trust that a legitimate source is authoring the account’s Tweets,” according to the Twitter Help Center.

The Twitter Help Center states the company will proactively reach out to high-profile accounts it feels deserve verification.

“Twitter has a little bit of a mysterious process because verification is not for the average person, and is reserved for very popular, active accounts,” said William Ward, a social media professor in the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. “Twitter’s process is intentionally vague and is likely dealt with on a case-by-case basis.”

SU officials decided to take initiative, and were able to speak with someone inside Twitter who helped get the account verified, said Kate Brodock, executive director of digital and social media for the university.

“The process was fairly simple,” Brodock said. “We had to complete some email verification and had to show that we were properly representing the university.”

Brodock has been working to get the account verified, but not with any sort of vigor, for the last couple of months.

The decision to get the account verified was not for any specific reason, but was mostly a “feel good move,” Brodock said.

The #44Social team, led by Brodock, is excited the account is verified, said Sarah Ostman, a junior public relations and information management and technology major, and one of the 11 members of the social media team.

“Being verified is something we’ve been trying to do for a while,” Ostman said. “It’s something we’ve been joking about since we started the #44Social team in September of 2011.”

The #44Social team manages Twitter as SU’s primary social media platform, and is also in charge of the social media communities on other platforms as well, Ostman said.

SU is on every major social media platform,with a focus on Twitter. Each team member works about 10-13 hours a week finding content and interacting with members of each respective social media community, Ostman said.

Being verified adds legitimacy to the @SyracuseU account, she said.

“Other schools, like University of Madison-Wisconsin, are verified so we wanted to be, too,” Ostman added.

Ward, the social media professor, said he agrees there are many positives to being verified.

“Now, people don’t have to worry if this is the real Syracuse account and not a parody account,” Ward said. “For people who are on Twitter, you want to make them feel certain that they’re connecting with the right accounts. “

Published on February 24, 2013 at 11:15 pm

Contact Jackie: jbarr@syr.edu