Can Small Businesses Survive Without TikTok?

As the TikTok ban approaches in the United States, millions of users including owners of small businesses are frantically trying to decide what to do.

President Biden signed the TikTok ban into law on Wednesday as part of a $95 billion international aid package. The new rule gives ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns TikTok, nine to twelve months to sell the platform to an American owner, failing which TikTok may be prohibited from operating in the United States.

Many business owners would have to find new properties if there was a restriction. TikTok intends to sue the ban in federal court in the interim.

TikTok Ban Will Wreck Gen Z

Jasmine Enberg, an analyst at eMarketer, highlighted TikTok's unique ability to drive sales for small businesses, distinguishing it from other platforms. She suggested that Meta would significantly benefit from a TikTok ban. Enberg noted that while Instagram Reels could potentially replace TikTok, it cannot fully replicate its culture despite similar technological features.

Big businesses that have relied on TikTok to reach younger customers don't seem to be worrying. However, they have also begun to plot. Some are revamping advertising strategies that were created just for TikTok. Many are experimenting with other options and giving priority to working with influencers that have substantial social media followings across several platforms.

Prominent influencers on TikTok, such as experts in fashion and cosmetics, persist in sharing content on the platform. However, according to Nicla Bartoli, vice president of sales at The Influencer Marketing Factory, an organization that connects companies and content producers, they are also putting out unique material on YouTube or Instagram or paying greater attention to their other social media accounts.

According to eMarketer data, TikTok does not earn as much money from advertisements as Instagram and Facebook, but the company projects that this year it will overtake the other two in terms of the proportion of users who make at least one transaction that comes from the platform.

A Global Impact

American TikTok users have tremendous influence on businesses throughout the world in addition to driving domestic ones. International business owners may also lose the US audiences that provide them with views that eventually result in purchases. Concerns have already been voiced by some, notably in Canada and the UK. "Banning TikTok in the US would be devastating to Canadian TikTok creators and small businesses, many of whom rely on being able to reach Americans as a large part of their audience," a TikTok Canada spokesman said in an email to Global News in March.

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