Where will creators and businesses go without TikTok?

The Supreme Court’s decision to uphold a law forcing the banning of TikTok in the U.S. has some businesses wondering what’s next. One business expert said it’s a tough lesson for some about being too reliant on one social media platform.

TikTok isn’t just a social media platform, it’s a massive marketplace, with the businesses on it generating over $1 billion in revenue every month from the millions of people who scroll through the app daily. The financial impact is real and could be powerful to them.

The move by the Supreme Court to uphold a law forcing the banning of TikTok in the U.S. unless its China-owned parent company sells surely has some of them reeling and wondering what’s next. One business expert said it’s a tough lesson for some about being too reliant on one platform.

“It’s always dangerous when the life of your business is depending on whims of some other entity,” Rita McGrath, who teaches at Columbia University’s school of business, said. “And that could have applied to the algorithms. You may remember, a shift in Google’s algorithm put BuzzFeed out of business.”

Creators and businesses are now scrambling for their Plan B, hoping to the audience they built on TikTok will follow them wherever they end up going. While TikTok was polarizing in one way, just about every other platform has its pros and cons and polarizing points as well, which could be a hindrance.

“Reassembling the community is going to take a lot of work,” McGrath said. “Connecting to people that are used to finding you one way, and now they’ve got to change their behavior and look for you another way — that’s challenging.”

But with the money and audience there for the taking, she said you can expect social media platforms to do what they can to lure new users.

“These tech companies don’t stand still. All the others have been watching TikTok and copying TikTok,” she said. “I think YouTube has a tremendous opportunity if they decide to really focus on that with the YouTube shorts. Every week it becomes more flexible and easier to do things with it.”
Or maybe it’ll be a platform you’re not familiar with, or that doesn’t even exist yet.

“If you could imagine someone getting started and kind of going viral and saying, ‘Hey, you know, I’m a legit alternative to TikTok and make it really, really easy to port all your stuff over,’” McGrath said. “I could see that being the real opportunity for somebody new to break in.”

But if businesses have done a good job of creating relationships with their followers or supporters, the loss of TikTok may not sting so much, or for very long.

“Another trend that we’re seeing is people are wanting to connect to people, and not even so much to brands anymore,” McGrath said. “It’s really the face of the individual that people are connecting to. And I think TikTok, in many ways, tapped into that.”

And soon, someone else might as well.

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