We started this road trip to discuss how to get verified on Clapper and beyond. But now that you’ve got a solid idea of how to get verified and what kind of verification Clapper has, we want to take a small detour. It won’t add any travel time, we promise! It just offers a few extra sites.

In this installment, we want to discuss keeping your verification. Or, to really make it urgent, how you can lose your verification.

Wait…I Can Lose My Verification?

Yes, you absolutely can lose your verification – on Clapper or on any other social media platform. Being verified is a privilege, even if you work super hard to achieve it. And being a verified member of a community means you meet certain standards, whether that be with your content or conduct on the app. If you fail to meet either, you may lose your verification.

So even if you have an incredible understanding of how to get verified, you’ll still need to know what could put you at risk for losing your verification.

How To Lose Your Verification

There’s four main ways that creators can lose their verification.

1. No longer consistently meeting the basic verification requirements.

We often tell creators to think of their content like a business. In business there will be slow seasons and fast seasons, and the same is true for content creation. Not every video is going to be great, and you may have a stretch where you fall below the verification requirements. Most social media apps will also be aware of this and will give you time to get back into the swing of things.

But if you consistently (over a month) fail to meet the basic verification requirements, your verification may be removed. If you’re not putting the effort into meeting the basic requirements, it shows many moderation teams that you’re not really invested in your content or community. Most requirements aren’t reaching or hard to get to altogether: if you have the followers, you should have the engagement.

You don’t have to meet the basic requirements every time you post – but you’ll need to meet them often.

2. Community guidelines violations.

If you aren’t upholding our community values, we don’t want you to be a verified creator. This means no bullying, harassment, or repeated community guidelines violations. This is also something our team reviews when considering you for verification. If you can’t follow the rules and don’t want to be a product, positive member of our community, then you cannot have or keep a verification.

You won’t lose your verification if you get a few community guidelines violations – we know things happen. But if you have repeated violations or violate the same rules over and over again, then you are in danger of losing your verification. We think this is pretty obvious, but just in case…

3. General abuse of your verification.

This is similar to the cause above. If you’re abusing your verification – creating fake accounts, using it to scam people, or generally misusing your verification – it can be removed.

4. Deleting your account.

If you delete your account, your verification will automatically be removed. Once your account and everything on it is gone, so is any form of verification that you have attached to it. This is why creators are often advised not to delete their account: if they decide to come back to a platform, they’ll have to start all over.

And, before you ask, a lot of platforms will make you start over. You may message and ask for your verification back and they may be excited that you’ve returned! But a lot of apps will still make you go through the verification process again. It’s nothing personal; if you built an excited audience that first time, you should be able to the second time.

What if I Lose My Verification?

Every platform will have their own verification process, including who to contact if you run into issues. We’ve already gone over ours, and this article would be a mile long if we tried to go over every app’s process. So we’ll focus on Clapper!

If you run into any issues with your verification – including losing it or having it taken away – you can message us in-app through @ClapperCreator or @ClapperAcademy. Our community management team will work with our moderation team to understand why your verification was removed.

How to Avoid Losing Your Verification

The vast majority of verified creators never come close to losing their verification. But there are some things you can do to really ensure you’re avoiding it.

1. Check your engagement.

Audit your content regularly to ensure you’re meeting the basic posting requirements most of the time. If you see your likes or views are starting to fall, brainstorm some ideas to refresh your content and keep it exciting. This may be the perfect time to start that new content series you were considering or try some new engagement strategy.

2. Read up on the community guidelines.

This is something we recommend every user do no matter what, but it’s especially important for creators that are hoping to get verified. If you know what could earn you a violation or potentially get you banned, you’re able to work around it.

3. Don’t abuse your verification.

Don’t bully, harass, scam, or otherwise belittle people. If you read the community guidelines, you should be left with a clear understanding of what constitutes bullying, harassment, scam, or any other abuse of the community.

4. Continue posting and engaging.

Keep the same consistency that got you your verification in the first place! Share content frequently (we always recommend having a schedule) and continue to interact with your community. Your community followed you in the first place because they like you. They want to keep seeing you on their FYP, on Livestreams, in Group chats – keep it up.

What If I Don’t Want to be Verified?

You can remove your verification in your Creator Space. Just go to your Creator Space, click into the “My Verification” tab, and you’ll be able to remove it from there.

Once you remove your own verification, you cannot add it back. If you remove your verification and decide you want it again, you’ll have to apply for verification and go through the entire process again. Really make sure you no longer want to be a verified creator before you remove your verification.

Our Next Stop

Now that we’ve explored losing your verification, we can get back to the main topic: how to get verified. And in our next installment, we’ll be telling you why you want to be verified. You may have a clear and very personal answer already in mind, but there’s a lot more reasons (and benefits) than you think.