The impending disappearance of TikTok, one of the most popular social media apps in the United States, has prompted marketers, agencies and creators to embrace alternatives — even if they're not entirely convinced that TikTok will actually enter the United States this month to leave. .
Marketers are shifting dollars to Instagram and adjusting their contracts with social media stars so they don't have to pay for sponsored TikTok posts in the app's absence. Creators are urging fans to follow them elsewhere while also collecting their email addresses to connect on other platforms. And talent agents are telling TikTok stars to pause on buying a house or car for now.
“I just got 30 million followers, and in 10 days I might lose it all,” says Joe Mele, a 26-year-old TikTok star from Long Island who started posting jokes when he was a college freshman. “It's a little scary.”
TikTok, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, is seeking to undo a law signed by President Biden in April that calls on ByteDance to sell the app to a non-Chinese company or face a ban in the United States on January 1 . 19. TikTok has claimed that a sale is impossible and challenged the law as unconstitutional. It will make its final legal argument in the case before the Supreme Court on Friday after losing its case at a lower court.
TikTok's disappearance would upend the social media and marketing landscape, sending billions in advertising dollars to rival platforms like Meta's Instagram and Google's YouTube and dispersing its 170 million monthly U.S. users. TikTok, known for its video feed that quickly adapts to users' interests, has become a cultural juggernaut since 2020, spawning best-selling books, viral recipes, Billboard 100 hits and even a cast member of “Saturday Night Live.”
“This will either be the biggest headline-grabbing event in marketing history or the biggest shock to the system in the last decade,” said Craig Brommers, chief marketing officer of retailer American Eagle Outfitters.
Some marketing agencies and creators are taking bigger steps than others to prepare for a possible TikTok ban. Vickie Segar, the founder of Village Marketing, an influencer marketing agency, said her company's clients moved some ad campaigns from TikTok to Instagram this month so their marketing wouldn't disappear on Jan. 19.
Lisette Sand-Freedman, founder of Shadow, a marketing and communications agency, recently started adding language to creator contracts that could involve a “channel exchange” if TikTok were to disappear. So, for example, if a brand's deal with a creator included three TikTok posts and the app stopped working in the United States, the brand could convert that to posts on Instagram or another platform of its choice, she said. Many creators post short videos and other content on multiple platforms.
It's a bad time to be “someone who is so phenomenal on TikTok but sucks on Instagram,” Ms. Sand-Freedman said. “I probably wouldn't cast them in anything big right now. There would simply be no point in crossing our fingers and praying that the content would work elsewhere.”
Yet many creators and marketers are balancing their very real concerns with a sense of disbelief. There has been talk of a possible TikTok ban since the first term of newly elected President Donald J. Trump, which “took the wind out of the sails” of the new law, Ms. Segar said.
“I think in the back of our minds we all feel like this isn't really going to happen,” she added.
TikTok and ByteDance are private and do not make their financial information public. But Brian Wieser, an analyst and founder of the consulting firm Madison and Wall, estimated that TikTok brought in $8 billion in ad sales in the U.S. last year, excluding e-commerce, tipping and other businesses.
Businesses can pay TikTok to show video ads or send their posts to more viewers. They also often pay to promote posts from creators they contract to promote their wares. TikTok is also taking a hit in sales from its robust e-commerce business TikTok Shop, although that initiative has required significant investment from the company over the past year and a half.
Agencies that manage creators — and help them with lucrative brand sponsorships, along with book, television and merchandise deals — have long advised their talent to diversify across social platforms. But the TikTok ban has highlighted the broader precariousness of social media companies, and in particular the creative economy, which Goldman Sachs estimates will grow to $480 billion by 2027.
Palette Media, an agency that represents more than 230 social media stars, now has an employee who handles “syndication” — essentially uploading creators' TikTok content to other platforms including Instagram Reels, YouTube and Snapchat, says Daniel Daks, CEO. That started in earnest about nine months ago.
Mr Daks said his company had also advised creators to hit the brakes on major financial purchases until the dust settled on TikTok's legal battle.
Madison Luscombe, chief marketing officer of the Creator Society, another creator management company, said she had urged social media stars to collect email addresses and phone numbers of their TikTok followers. Some of the company's creators are building email lists on Substack, a newsletter platform, she said.
“Remember when MySpace was the next big thing?” That was what Mr. Brommers of American Eagle said. “Remember when Vine was extremely hot? Remember Clubhouse, remember BeReal? As a marketer, this potential ban reminds me that things come and go, even if on a scale that none of us have ever seen.”
Many marketers said creators, especially those who are more popular on TikTok than any other platform, would suffer the most from the app's demise.
“The brands will be fine,” said Ms. Sand-Freedman of the Shadow agency. “It's all these incredible 'nobodies' who became somebody and started making real money and built their lives on that, they're going to be affected.”
But not all makers are sounding the alarm bells.
Marideth and Austin Telenko, a married couple known for dancing on TikTok under the name Cost n' Mayor, said they started posting on the platform during the pandemic, when their gigs in the professional dance world dried up. They said their work in the entertainment industry had taught them “to know that whatever you do is finite,” Ms. Telenko, 27, said.
“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 now?'” said Ms. Telenko, who has since worked with major brands like Home Depot and has a dance game for sale at Walmart with her husband. “If TikTok disappears, we will find the next thing.”
