If TikTok Dies Tomorrow, Will Your Brand Die, Too?

What’s Happening and Why?

The ongoing TikTok saga continues in the U.S., with The House passing a bill that would require TikTok owner, ByteDance, to either sell the platform within 6 months of the bill being signed into law, or risk the app being banned in the U.S.?

Lawmakers are concerned that the app poses a grave risk to our national security as it is owned by a Chinese-based company that is under obligation to cooperate with the Chinese National Intelligence Law, essentially indicating that it could be used to spy on Americans or nefariously influence public opinion. Opponents say a ban would violate the First Amendment and negatively impact those whose livelihoods are reliant on the app.

Now, the bill heads to the Senate, where it faces potential amendments and uncertain passage. President Biden has vowed to sign the bill into law if it is passed by the Senate. At that point, the 6-month clock would begin to tick for ByteDance to sell, a proposition that faces significant hurdles that include antitrust concerns in the U.S. as well as low approval odds by the Chinese government who oppose a forced sale. If the bill passes and ByteDance is unable or unwilling to sell, U.S. users could lose access to TikTok within months.

This is not TikTok’s first foray into bans by foreign governments. In June of 2020 after a violent clash between soldiers at the India/China border, India abruptly banned TikTok, cutting off access to its 200 million users.?

Who Wins If This Happens?

A TikTok ban could be a big win for U.S.-based social media platforms. A week after TikTok was banned in India, U.S.-based Meta released its answer to TikTok, Instagram Reels, in India, and Google’s YouTube Shorts followed shortly after. A small handful of platforms were developed by Indian companies and saw some initial user adoption, but fell off as users gained more traction with the larger apps.

In the U.S., Snapchat has the largest overlapping audience with TikTok, while Instagram Reels is the most similar in terms of functionality and has a much larger user base. If TikTok is banned in the U.S., Instagram, Snapchat, and YouTube would likely see an increase in both total number of users as well as minutes per day spent on their platforms, while Meta would likely see the largest influx of additional ad spend. Meta, Google, Snap, Amazon, and Pinterest would all likely see their stock prices increase. This might explain why Meta has invested millions in consulting firms aimed at disparaging TikTok in the public eye.

What Does This Mean for Creators?

When India banned TikTok, creators who had diversified their presence on various platforms stood strong. Many other content creators swiftly migrated to other platforms, rebuilding their followings over the course of a year or more. But, many others panicked, didn’t act, and they were unable to recover. This, my friends, illustrates the importance of personal branding across platforms.

Today, we’re faced with a possible TikTok ban, but this is far from the first challenge for online content creators and small businesses. Platform outages are common, features regularly change and decrease audience reach, the ever-evolving art of email deliverability is a moving target, and our entire online worlds are vulnerable to cyber attacks, server outages, and even solar flares.

In order to future-proof our personal brands, we must go to where our target audiences are and build strong, multifaceted communities, both online and in the real world. We must offer so much value that our audiences are incentivized to engage with us across platforms and mediums, even as trends shift. Only then will our communities intentionally seek us out when they are in need of the services and products that we offer, whether our social profiles have gone dark, our email addresses have changed, we’ve changed companies or the entire internet has been wiped out. You never know, it could happen…