What Would A TikTok Ban Do To Small Businesses?

The Tik Tok Ban. The thing that everyone has been dreading. I’m just kidding, but this idea of a ban has been looming over many users for almost a year. In April of last year, former President Biden signed a bill requiring that the app be sold to an American company, or the app will be banned. Just a couple weeks ago, the Supreme Court upheld this ban, and the app went dark for a couple hours. Before this there were many threats of a ban, but up till these past couple weeks, no one really took a “ban” seriously. Many users were upset, many were mad, but some were scared. One of these groups was the users who used “TikTok Shop”. Before, many brands and small businesses just marketed through content/videos and relied on users to go to personal websites and shop. Later, Tik Tok introduced a “shop” feature, which allows users to directly sell products to other users. This introduced a separate tab in the app where users can just shop different viral products that can be promoted through videos on the app. Users can also sell their products using “lives” and videos that can directly connect to a new group of consumers, since there are many users on the app. However, with a Tik Tok Ban, these users who sell goods on the app would lose the platform. They would lose direct access to this group of consumers. This is why many are against a ban. But to understand why many don’t want this ban, we have to understand what a ban on TikTok would do to small businesses? 

Well, one of the first things that would happen is the loss of many jobs. This was the first thing I thought of when I heard the ban on TikTok. According to TikTok themselves, “224,000 jobs were supported” on the app as of March of last year. This does include influencers, as well as the small businesses. As well, they also claim that there are “7 million businesses in the US” that rely and use the platform. Many businesses have spent years building up their following and the attention they receive. Influencers may have an easier time changing platforms since they typically use multiple social media platforms, but there are many small businesses that rely on the huge popularity of TikTok to fuel attention on their products. The loss of TikTok would force these sellers to move to new apps and start again, or just be out of a job entirely. This would put many at a devastating loss, if the ban were to go through. 

Branching off of that, many small businesses rely on TikTok to market their business. One example of this can be seen from a news report by WKRG. One small business owner they spoke to described TikTok as a way to “share with the world” rather than “not just staying local.” This is so true. Many of the popular and successful businesses on TikTok may not have survived if their reach just stayed local. Since the app allows users from all around the U.S. to see different forms of content, these small businesses can reach more people who many want to try their products. Additionally, large businesses use the platform to promote. One major example of this would be “Duolingo”, an app that allows users to learn a new language in fun and interactive ways. The company uses their mascot, “Duo”, in almost all of their videos, following the trends on the app and posting funny content. By posting this form of content, many users could be persuaded and encouraged to download the app, “Duolingo”, and that would boost their company. By losing TikTok, the company can no longer use these trends to market their app, and connect with a large platform of users. The loss of TikTok in the U.S. would limit the amount of people any business could market towards, which in turn would lose them profit.

Additionally, losing TikTok small businesses could negatively affect the economy due to the loss of revenue. According to VOA news, TikTok estimates that the small businesses using the app “would lose more than $1 billion in revenue in a single month” if the ban went through. This would result in a huge effect on the economy, since this pillar of expenses would no longer be happening. That profit that these small businesses have created would be lost. Users would be forced to create shops on other platforms, but who knows if they would be able to reach a huge audience like TikTok shops could?

Yet, some companies could not be affected. Big businesses, like Walmart and Target, who have TikTok accounts will not be affected by the ban. They already have multiple apps and huge platforms to expose audiences to their products. For example, Walmart currently has 1.6 million on Tiktok, but on Instagram they have 3.4 million. If TikTok were to get banned, they still have a major platform to fall back on, with even more followers. The ban of TikTok would not cause major effects in their marketing, since they can just move to other major platforms with the similar amount of following. This causes many to argue that a ban will not affect the economy or business in general because many major companies will not feel significant effects from the ban. 

As much as people argue that the ban of TikTok will not affect many, it’s important to recognize how it can affect others, including small businesses. Tiktok has allowed small business owners to market to huge audiences, more than they could if they had to stick to their local area. These business owners will also lose their jobs if the platform gets banned because they will no longer have a space to sell their products or promote their business. Even if big businesses can move over to another platform, small businesses may struggle to get the same amount of interaction on another platform. They may struggle to build back up a following, whereas big businesses may not have to worry about that as much. And even if the effect on the economy may not be significant, this loss of profit and expenses will still be noticeable. Overall, I think we need to evaluate how we can better help these small businesses and people who depend on TikTok for an income, that way if it does get banned, there would be a less significant impact for many.

Thank you for reading! I didn't have a huge amount of time this week to write, so I tried writing a smaller piece, let me know what you think!