Newbie (ish) here
I have been researching quite extensively around verification as looking to IG blue-checked my personal account and I have some questions I am still unable to find answers for.
I am well aware that those who have all the keys and insider information are not keen on giving them out to strangers online.
To cut the long story short I am an entrepreneur with a real solid business (the business itself is already verified on IG, platform gave it automatically as it is very famous in the country) and I have over 10 articles/features that are on myself as well as the business. Some of those are Tier 1 publications and the features are organic (as some point I was probably top 5 world most influential within the niche, if you <25y old there is a good chance that you know about one thing that I created 
)
Most of those have got my name in the title or headline….however….
Basically I live in a country (UK) but the business is in a country in southern Europe (where I grew up) and my press is mostly of that country and in the local language. I bought some press recently on Swapd to aid with SEO as well as business notability and I thought I might also take the chance to get my profile verified as the stories are linked.
Some people here tell me that I need 5 strong articles and others say that I need to start from scratch, some others say that the press from the country where I have the business in accounts for nothing at all.
So my question is…does press need to be all from one country? When submitting verification am I better off selecting the country of the news outlets (USA for the most) and inputting the american links or shall I focus on getting links from the southern european country and input those?
And as I dont want to get scammed: is it true that if going via a portal the press accepted depends on the country of the portal? I.e the press from southern european country will not count in a USA portal.
Would be grateful if eomeone could clarify