This TikTok ban is different. Your brand needs a contingency plan.
For brands coast to coast whether they’re a small business or a multi-million dollar organization, TikTok has been a place where anything can happen. Virality is just one great video away, and your audience is actively in your Comments section eager to say hi to you (literally just to say hi). That may come to an end to our US counterparts, which is not a good sign for us.
Banning TikTok in the US is a warning sign to Canadian TikTok creators and brands, many of which rely on being able to reach Americans as a big portion of their audience on social. With TikTok potentially exiting stage right, brands need to explore ways to seek refuge on other social platforms and keep their digital presence alive.
Know what you’re working against
If your brand is heavily invested in TikTok as part of your marketing strategy, you need to get ready for some serious audience disruption and decrease in engagement. A Pew Research study found that one third of the American population uses TikTok, and if they can’t log into the app anymore, there goes a significant portion of your North American audience. Brands need to take a holistic look at your audience and their social habits to uncover where your target audience is likely to migrate to alternate platforms. That’s the real insight: These target markets aren’t just going to throw their phones away and swear off of social media for good – if it’s not TikTok, where will they flock to instead?
Build your owned audience
Take control of the funnels that you own. Now is a perfect time to evaluate your direct communication channels with your audience so you can grow and nurture them. Maintain direct connection to your audience with a strong email list so you can reach your community at any time, regardless of platform or marketing changes to the social media landscape. Especially as social channels become more and more powerful (we’re looking at you, Meta) these social giants can hold your marketing plan hostage should anything go awry. Empower your brand to take back some of your audience by being there for them with tailored messaging right in their inbox.
Diversify your marketing channels
Your brand needs to mitigate the potential downfall of TikTok as part of your marketing plan. Take time to explore different emerging platforms like YouTube Shorts and Threads, while also investing time back into the classics like Meta and Pinterest. Your distribution strategies will not only help you reconnect with the audience you lost on TikTok, but also potentially find new niches and avenues for your brand to connect with new communities you may have never explored. Take this as a lesson: Never put all your marketing dollars into one place, especially in channels that you don’t own.
Choose influencers wisely
TikTok creators are known to be one of the most creative and authentic types of creators across any social platform, so if you’ve invested heavily in the success of your TikTok strategy, now is also the time to evaluate whether your influencer marketing strategy can survive a US TikTok ban. When selecting influencers based on their followings and engagement rate, be sure to explore their cross-platform presence for a comprehensive look at their digital footprint. Select influencers who have cultivated their communities on multiple platforms to ensure that their message (and of course, yours) will be relayed to their audience on platforms where they have maintained influence, with or without TikTok.
TikTok has always been seen by marketers as the social equalizer. Musicians with big dreams (and no publicist or marketing team) can sell out their shows using TikTok to market upcoming events. Brands big and small can reach thousands to millions of people with just one viral video, gathering new followers, more engagement and, of course, sales – without a single dollar of paid media. If we may say goodbye to the platform and all it offers, Canadian brands need to prepare for the worst, right now.
