Businesses respond to possible TikTok ban

On Jan. 19, TikTok went dark for its 170 million users in the United States.

The site was down for less than a day, but that was enough to give users a taste of what might happen if a ban of the video-sharing app goes into effect.

A nationwide ban on TikTok was set to begin Jan. 19 following the 2024 bipartisan passage of a law by Congress intending to curb national security risks posed by the company with Chinese ownership.

TikTok’s final legal challenge to the law was denied by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled on Jan. 17 that the ban does not violate First Amendment free speech protections.

As of press time on Jan. 23, users who already have the app downloaded are still able to use it. However, the platform does not show up in U.S. app stores for new downloads.

Many users are seeking a solution from newly inaugurated President Donald Trump, who has vowed to save the platform, perhaps in the form of a U.S. buyer.

Though TikTok trends, like dance challenges and life hacks, keep the platform popular among users, many businesses depend on it for connections or sales.

Aaron Schekorra’s 2-year-old Own Your Pride business specializes in online sales of pride flags and other merchandise geared toward the LGBTQ+ community. Schekorra said about 40% of his sales happen through the TikTok Shop, the site’s e-commerce feature. An additional 20% is from purchases by people who found the company on TikTok and navigated to its website.

“A ban would have a significant impact,” he said. “I’m still looking at what that’s going to look like.”

Amy Molea-Koppitz, part of the 417 Property Pros real estate team through Keller Williams, relies heavily on TikTok, too, but not for sales.

“When I started with TikTok two years ago, I put enough educational content out there to build a following and get referrals,” she said. “They get to know me before they know me.”

Her presence on the platform is not about being funny, she said. Rather, she provides evergreen content on homebuying topics and repurposes videos for Facebook and Instagram.

It took some time to learn TikTok’s tools, she said, and she even hired a coach to help her master them.

“I devoted so much time and energy to learning this tool – it really would break my heart to lose it,” she said.

Desirable medium
Molea-Koppitz said one of the appeals of TikTok is its algorithm, which is less controlling than Facebook’s or Instagram’s.

“You may have 2,000 followers, but if Facebook decides only 10 people are going to see a post, no one will see it without coming to your page,” she said.

That’s not how it is with TikTok, where a combination of hashtags like #InvestmentProperties and #Missouri can draw anyone looking for related content.

Molea-Koppitz said she understands the national security concerns behind the ban, but to her, it feels unfair.

“It’s finally just starting to yield results,” she said. “People are reaching out from California and saying, ‘When I move to the area, you’ll be my Realtor.’”

Much of that business will go away if TikTok disappears, according to Molea-Koppitz.

“My heart really bleeds for people who were making their entire family income through this platform,” she said.

TikTok is an economic driver, according to its 2024 economic impact report, published on the TikTok website. The report states the platform fuels significant economic growth for more than 7 million U.S. businesses, adding more than $24 billion in gross domestic product and supporting more than 224,000 jobs in 2023.

The report, released in April 2024, says 40% of small to medium-sized businesses say TikTok is critical to their businesses’ existence.

Not just business
Nonprofits also rely on TikTok. LoveSpringfield is the name of the official TikTok tourism account for Visit Springfield, Missouri, formerly known as the Springfield Convention and Visitors Bureau. The account has 44,300 followers.

“It’s one of our many social media platforms – we have multiple platforms that we use,” said Lucy Atwood, communications manager for Visit Springfield, Missouri.

Atwood said Visit Springfield will continue to use the platform while it remains available.

“We’ll continue reaching out to that group of followers,” she said, but added that having a wide variety of platforms in play means a wide variety of people can be targeted.

Visit Springfield’s TikTok followers tend to be younger than those it reaches via other platforms.

“They’re interested in travel, small-town community and an authentic feel,” Atwood said.

Sometimes she leans into TikTok trends, she said.

“We just try to follow where we can,” she said. “We don’t hop on trends if they don’t get our message across, but that’s a fun way to lean in and get the younger generation excited about traveling to Springfield.”

If the platform disappears, Visit Springfield will simply shift to other ones, Atwood said, noting that Instagram hits a similar demographic.

As she continues following her TikTok strategy, Atwood said she leans on the duality of the place. There aren’t many places like Springfield, she said, where it’s possible to be in an urban center one minute and 15 minutes later be in the woods or kayaking down the James River. That’s a vision that TikTok followers were receptive to.

“It’s always unfortunate when you lose a platform because it’s a way to communicate with an audience,” she said. “We are blessed that we have other ways of communicating with individuals as well. We definitely did not put all our eggs in one basket.”

Next steps
Emily Laurie is a consultant with her own firm, Scattered Marketing. She has used TikTok for sales, especially with her former jewelry business Onie and Sky, but she said she has been advising clients against relying too heavily on the platform. She acknowledges, however, that a lot of money moves on it.

“There are definitely some businesses that are going to have to switch their strategies,” she said. “About six to eight months ago, I had a client that wanted to get on TikTok. I told her, ‘I think it’s going to get banned.’ No one was really talking about it then.”

Laurie said she’s glad she and her client managed to build a presence that was not dependent on TikTok.

“One of my mentors told me: Don’t put all your eggs on one platform,” she said, echoing Atwood.

That’s why Laurie makes email marketing the center of her marketing strategy.

“Social can go away tomorrow. An email list doesn’t,” she said. “This is a good wakeup call to a lot of people to go back to the old strategies.”

Kyle Drenon, CEO and co-owner of food and beverage industry marketing firm Supper Co., said via LinkedIn message that a TikTok ban signals a shift. Meta Platforms Inc., owner of Facebook and Instagram, and Snap Inc., owner of Snapchat, are about to get bigger, he said.

“Until we are certain of TikTok’s future, we are not recommending long-term media dollars be committed there,” he said.

Molea-Koppitz said if TikTok goes away, she expects to post more frequently on YouTube and YouTube Shorts.

“I still believe in connecting through video,” she said.

Executive solution
Laurie said she thinks the TikTok issue will be worked out by a president who knows the value of influencers and social media. He has a knack for business and understands the changing trajectory of the current era, she said.

“Hopefully Trump can negotiate a good deal,” she said.

In addition to Own Your Pride, Schekorra has another job: He is executive director of the GLO Center, a nonprofit that provides resources, education and advocacy to members of the LGBTQ+ community. While he sees much of President Trump’s agenda as being harmful to the people he serves – an example is a first-day executive order to remove government recognition of transgender people’s identities – he now finds himself looking to the president for help.

“It is a bit of irony that the solution for my LGBTQ+ merchandise business is relying on an administration that is not typically a friend to my community,” he said.

But even a broken clock is right twice a day, Schekorra said, and added that the process to ban the app started with a bipartisan bill.

“While I definitely don’t see eye-to-eye with the administration on a variety of very important issues, I’m not going to oppose a solution because of the person presenting it,” he said.

Schekorra said he doesn’t think there can be an equivalent replacement for TikTok.

“At the end of the day, the solution is for it to stay around,” he said.