TikTok Creators Plead With Fans to Follow Them to New Platforms

TikTok’s owner has one week to sell the platform or face a U.S. ban.

And with that deadline looming, creators on the social media service are urging fans to find them on other channels, CNBC reported Sunday (Jan. 12).

“This is my 9-to-5 job,” Jack Nader, who said he makes between $1,000 and $12,000 per month from posting beauty videos, told the network. “This is what I do to make a living. This is how I pay for my groceries. This is how millions of small businesses make their money.”

If fans don’t migrate to other social media networks, Nader added, he risks losing them and the income stream they bring with them.

“Not everyone from my TikTok following is going to come over, and that’s really sad,” he said. 

As the report noted, the risk to creators on TikTok is not new, but it ramped up last year when President Joe Biden signed a law requiring ByteDance — the platform’s China-based owner — to divest the app by Jan. 19. Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle had pushed the ban, citing national security concerns.

If ByteDance doesn’t sell, the law will require Apple and Google to make sure their platforms no longer support TikTok in the U.S.

President-elect Donald Trump, who had supported a TikTok ban during his first term in the White House, has since changed his mind on the matter. Last month, he urged the Supreme Court to step in and delay implementation of Biden’s ban to give him time to find a “political resolution.” Trump will be sworn in on the day after the ban goes into effect.

The Supreme Court heard arguments from ByteDance and the U.S. government on the ban last week, with justices reportedly seeming cool to the company’s argument that the ban violates users’ free speech rights.

PYMNTS examined the effect the TikTok ban could have on creators’ brand visibility and engagement in a report last year.

“I think it would present new challenges for us as a small business, once the TikTok ban comes into effect,” said Fiona Co Chan, CEO and founder of Youthforia, a skincare brand with more than 190,000 followers on TikTok.

But with or without TikTok, the app’s effects on the social commerce landscape will remain, she added.

“I think what won’t change is the style of content that Tiktok introduced to audiences around the world — quick, engaging, informative content that gets straight to the point,” said Chan.