The impending demise of TikTok, one of the most popular social media apps in the United States, has marketers, companies and creators scrambling to embrace alternatives — even if they’re not entirely convinced that TikTok will actually leaving the United States this month.
Marketers are shifting dollars to Instagram and tweaking their contracts with social media stars so they’re not stuck paying for sponsored TikTok posts in the app’s absence. Creators ask fans to follow them elsewhere while collecting their email addresses to log in on other platforms. And talent agents are telling TikTok stars to hold off on buying a house or a car for now.
“I just hit 30 million followers and 10 days from now I might lose it all,” said Joe Mele, a 26-year-old TikTok star from Long Island who started posting jokes as a freshman in college. “It’s a little scary.”
TikTok, which is owned by Chinese company ByteDance, is trying to overturn a law signed by President Biden in April that requires ByteDance to sell the app to a non-Chinese company or face a ban in the United States in January. 19. TikTok claimed the sale is impossible and challenged the law as unconstitutional. She will make the final legal argument in the case on Friday before the Supreme Court after losing her case in a lower court.
TikTok’s demise would upend the social media and marketing landscape, funneling billions in ad dollars to rival platforms like Meta’s Instagram and Google’s YouTube and scattering its 170 million monthly US users. TikTok, known for its video feed that quickly adapts to users’ interests, has become a cultural killer since 2020, spawning best-selling books, viral recipes, Billboard 100 hits and even a cast member on “Saturday Night Live”.
“This is going to be either the biggest front-page story in marketing history or the biggest shock to the system in a decade,” said Craig Brommers, chief marketing officer at retailer American Eagle Outfitters.
Some marketing companies and creators are taking greater steps than others to prepare for a possible TikTok ban. Vickie Segar, the founder of Village Marketing, an influencer marketing firm, said her firm’s clients are moving some Instagram ad campaigns from TikTok this month so their marketing doesn’t go dark on Jan. 19.
Lisette Sand-Freedman, founder of Shadow, a marketing and communications firm, recently began adding language to contracts with creators where there could be a “channel exchange” if TikTok were to disappear. So if a brand’s deal with a creator included, say, three posts on TikTok and the app stopped working in the United States, the brand could change that to posts on Instagram or another platform of its choice, he said. Many creators publish short-form videos and other content across multiple platforms.
It’s a bad time to be “someone who’s so fantastic on TikTok but sucks on Instagram,” Ms. Sand-Freedman. “I probably wouldn’t put them in anything big right now. It just wouldn’t make sense to cross your fingers and pray that their content would work somewhere else.”
However, many creators and marketers balance their very real concerns with a sense of disbelief. There has been talk of a possible ban on TikTok since the first term of President-elect Donald J. Trump, who “took the wind out of the sails” of the new law, said Ms. Segar.
“I think we all feel in the back of our heads that it’s not actually going to happen,” he added.
TikTok and ByteDance are privately held and do not publicly disclose their financials. But Brian Wieser, analyst and founder of consulting firm Madison and Wall, estimated that TikTok generated $8 billion in US ad sales last year, excluding e-commerce, tipping and other ventures.
Companies can pay TikTok to run video ads or send their posts to more viewers. They also often pay to boost posts from creators they contract to promote their products. TikTok is also getting a cut of sales from its strong e-commerce business, the TikTok Shop, although that initiative has required significant investment from the company over the past year and a half.
Companies that manage creators — helping connect them with lucrative brand endorsements, along with book, TV and merchandise deals — have long advised their talent to diversify on social platforms. However, TikTok’s ban has highlighted the broader vulnerability of social media businesses and the creator economy in particular, which Goldman Sachs predicts will grow to $480 billion by 2027.
Palette Media, a company that represents more than 230 social media stars, now has an employee dedicated to “syndication” — essentially, uploading TikTok content from creators to other platforms, including Instagram Reels, YouTube and Snapchat, said Daniel Daks , its CEO. . This started in earnest about nine months ago.
Mr. Daks said his company was also advising creators to hold off on major financial markets until the dust settles on TikTok’s legal battle.
Madison Luscombe, head of marketing at Creator Society, another creator management company, said she encouraged social media stars to collect email addresses and phone numbers from their TikTok followers. Some of the company’s creators build email lists on Substack, a newsletter platform, he said.
“Remember when MySpace was the next big thing?” said Mr. American Eagle Brommers. “Remember when Vine was super hot? Remember Clubhouse, remember BeReal? This potential ban is a reminder to me as a marketer that things come and things go, even if it’s on a scale none of us have seen.”
Many marketers said creators, especially those who are more popular on TikTok than any other platform, were poised to suffer the most from the app’s demise.
“The brands will be fine,” said Ms. Sand-Freedman of Shadow, the agency. “It’s all these incredible nobodys who became somebodys and started making real money and building their lives off of it, they’re going to be affected.”
But not all creators sound the alarm.
Marideth and Austin Telenko, a married couple known for their TikTok dances under the name Cost n’ Mayor, said they started posting on the platform during the pandemic when their gigs in the professional dance world ended. They said their work in the entertainment industry had taught them “to know that whatever you do is finite,” Ms. Telenko, 27 years old.
“You could have had the same conversation with us at the beginning of the pandemic when all our dance jobs closed — you could have called us then and said, ‘Your job is closing — what are you going to do next?’ said Ms. Telenko, who has since partnered with major brands like Home Depot and has a dancing toy with her husband for sale at Walmart. “If TikTok goes away, we’ll find the next thing.”
