TikTok is in the news, so let’s take a look at why that matters for small businesses.
TikTok is a social media behemoth.
It is the world's fourth-most used social media platform behind Facebook, YouTube and Instagram. Not only is it a popular source of entertainment and news, it’s also become a popular advertising vehicle for businesses of all sizes.
TikTok generated $16.1 billion in revenue in 2023, and its revenue was estimated at $20.5 billion through the first three quarters of 2024.
Becoming an ecommerce giant
Through the company’s ecommerce platform, TikTok Shop, small businesses are selling all kinds of products. Black Friday sales in 2024 year exceeded $100 million, more than triple Black Friday sales the previous year.
Many businesses have built their brands on TikTok just by posting short videos for free. Within the next week here in the United States, it could all disappear.
As of this writing, it appears the U.S. Supreme Court will uphold a law that requires TikTok’s China-based parent company, ByteDance, to either sell to a new owner or be banned in the U.S.
How a ban would work
How would the ban be accomplished? According to the Wikipedia summary, the law prohibits U.S. app stores from offering TikTok and bans hosting services from supporting the app, effectively rendering it inoperable here.
No matter what your opinion about the law and possible ban, and even if TikTok survives in the U.S., there’s one overriding lesson for small businesses: know that you're building on rented land.
Here’s what that means. No matter how many followers or fans you have on TikTok or almost any other social media platform, you don’t have access to essential information about them – real names, email addresses, mailing addresses, etc.
Goodbye followers
If the platform disappears, so do all of your followers and potential customers.
Poof.
Influencers have no one to influence. TikTok sellers have no shoppers. TikTok dancers, musicians, and comedians have no audience.
TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, X … they’re all rented land. If you want to keep the contacts and potential customers you attract on social media, you’ve got to find a way to move them to your website and convince them to give you an email address.
Unfortunately, social media sites won’t help you do that. Their algorithms suppress posts that link to outside websites. They (understandably) want to keep the traffic for themselves. One way to get around that is to pay for advertising that links to your site.
Use rented land to your advantage
You can also create content suggesting people visit your site without a link. I just learned that LinkedIn newsletters can contain images that link to other sites without being penalized.
Social media platforms have value and should be part of almost every digital marketing strategy. Use social media to make people aware of your brand, but don’t count on it as a repository for potential customers. Platforms can change the rules, or they might just disappear.
Plan accordingly. Use the rented land to your advantage and drive customers to a platform you control.
The next newsletter, the first in 2025, arrives Jan. 28. By then, the United States’ 47th president will have been inaugurated, an NCAA college football champion will have been crowned, and we’ll know which NFL teams will play in the Super Bowl.
Until next time, be grateful. Be generous. Be patient. Love. And enjoy the season. Thanks for spending some of your time with me, . I appreciate you.
Mark
P.S. - This newsletter was 100 percent created by me, a human.
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